From the Greek word polis, meaning "city", it was imagined as a place where work and leisure, lifetime education and intercultural exchange, research and manufacturing would be uniquely integrated.

The Multifunction Polis was first proposed in January 1987 by the Japanese Minister for International Trade and Industry (MITI), Hajime Tamura, at the ninth Australia-Japan Ministerial Committee meeting in Canberra.

[4][5] A concept paper produced by MITI a month later said the Multifunction Polis would "become a forum for international exchange in the region and a model for new industries and new lifestyles looking ahead to the twenty-first century".

In 1990, the MFP Joint Steering Committee (chaired by ANZ Bank chief executive Will Bailey) awarded the project to the Gold Coast in Queensland, but after the state's premier, Wayne Goss, declined to consolidate the land under a public corporation, the Joint Steering Committee switched its choice to Gillman, near Adelaide in South Australia.

[8] The Multifunction Polis project failed to attract the required investment, particularly after the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in the early 1990s, and Australia's Federal Government withdrew funding in 1996.

[13] Development eventually did proceed several kilometres further east at another northern Adelaide suburb, formerly called The Levels, where a campus of the University of South Australia was located.

The South Australian Government, in conjunction with developer Delfin Lend Lease, proceeded along lines similar to those proposed for the MFP, although that name was dropped due to the controversy that had surrounded it.

The layout of Mawson Lakes and Technology Park is designed to encourage residents to cycle or walk rather than drive, and there is also a centrally located bus and train interchange.