[3] George Swinburne MLA, with the backing of Premier Thomas Bent,[4][5] was the driving force behind its establishment, and its most generous benefactor, hence the name of the university.

By 1913, £10,111 had been spent on its establishment, of which £3,718 came from private donations (including £1,000 each from George and Ethel Swinburne), and the remainder from the government.

[8] Partially in response to this advocacy, in 1990 Swinburne established its "Eastern Campus" in Mooroolbark (sometimes described as Lilydale), on the site of the recently closed MDA Grammar School.

However, students could not attend until 1992 due to council planning negotiation,[7] and the campus was officially opened on 6 April 1992.

The Dawkins reforms to Australian higher education in the early 1990s led to many tertiary colleges being merged or split-up, and many given university status.

In 1998, it merged with the Outer East Institute of TAFE and began operating from campuses at Croydon and Wantirna.

[25] NICA's degrees have been administered by the university and this will continue until the end of 2025, when they will be transferred to the Australian College of the Arts (Collarts).

[45] As of 2024[update] the vice-chancellor and president is Pascale Quester and the chancellor John Pollaers (appointed 2019).

[51] It has functioning partnerships with industry,[52] is known for its engineering-centered and catalytic revolvement educational spheres,[53] and is the only academic institution in Melbourne that offers pilot training as part of its aviation degrees.

[54] Swinburne has its own cross-departmental innovation studio, which aims to speed up development and marketing of new ventures.

[59] As of September 2021[update], Swinburne has six research institutes:[60] The Swinburne Institute for Social Research formerly (until 2017)[68] existed within the Faculty of Health, Arts and Design,[69] It included the Public Interest Journalism Foundation (PIJ Foundation), which produced YouComm News.

[70][71] As of 2020, PIJF has evolved into an independent organisation, now named Public Interest Journalistic Freedom,[72] which is partially crowd-funded.

[93] The Australian Government's QILT[c] conducts national surveys documenting the student life cycle from enrolment through to employment.

[94] These surveys place more emphasis on criteria such as student experience, graduate outcomes and employer satisfaction[94] than perceived reputation, research output and citation counts.

[103][104] The Parramatta campus, west of Sydney in New South Wales, is located in a public library building as a tenant.

[111] It was formed to maximise the Federal Government's decision to lift caps on Commonwealth-supported university places from 2012, a policy which intended to increase the number of 25- to 34-year-olds with bachelor's degrees to 40 per cent by 2025.

[107] Swinburne Online originally provided higher education degrees at both bachelor and masters level.

As of April 2015, it offered over twenty courses in business, communication, design, education, and social science.