On their return to Australia, Edgar joined the staff of La Trobe University as the inaugural Head of the Centre for the Study of Media and Communication.

[1] She introduced the first courses on film and television production and cinema studies at an Australian university.

She was also involved in the Australian National Commission of UNESCO, Film Victoria, the Council of the Australian Film and Television School, the Victorian Government's Board of CIRCIT Ltd (Centre for International Research on Communication and Information Technologies) and the Victorian Post-Secondary Education Commission.

Edgar also served as an Associate Member of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's Inquiry into Violence on Television from 1988 to 1989.

[4] While she was director of the ACTF she produced a number of acclaimed children's television programs for all ages, which included Round the Twist, Lift Off, The Genie from Down Under, Touch the Sun, Winners, Kaboodle, Crash Zone, Li'l Elvis and the Truckstoppers, Noah and Saskia, Yolngu Boy, and Kahootz.

Her books about television and the media include Children and Screen Violence, Under Five in Australia, Media She (with Hilary McPhee), The Politics of the Press and recently a memoir Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television, which prompted Phillip Adams to write "I would regard Patricia Edgar as a sort of human tank.

[citation needed] In 1994 the University of Western Australia awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon DLitt).

[1] In 2003, the Governor General awarded her with the Centenary Medal to mark her contribution "to children's television education programs".