Introducing Natural Hazards Research Australia

Australia has a new national centre for natural hazards resilience and disaster risk reduction: Natural Hazards Research Australia. New research is now underway, with plenty of exciting funding opportunities already available.

DR RICHARD THORNTON

CEO, Natural Hazards Research Australia

A new chapter in Australia’s national natural hazards research began in July last year with the establishment of Natural Hazards Research Australia (the Centre).

The Centre is now up and running, extending 18 years of collaborative research from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and its predecessor, the Bushfire CRC. Funded with $85 M over 10 years from the Australian Government, along with contributions from partners, the Centre’s role is to work with partners and the community to produce usable research that creates safer and more resilient communities.

The impacts of natural hazards in Australia are predicted to become more extreme and frequent in the future, so this is an important opportunity to produce research that underpins Australia’s National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework with the best available evidence and knowledge. The Centre is an important step forward as Australia continues to use research to think strategically about how we make communities—our built and natural environments—safe and sustainable to the effects of natural hazards.

Since beginning in July, we have been busy working with the government and our partners to develop a strategic natural hazards research agenda for Australia. We’ve also been establishing all the programs and processes that a national centre needs: governance and staff, nodes in states and territories, initial research programs, an education program, funding opportunities, fresh branding, a media presence and much more.

Governance and location

The Centre is a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee and registered as a charity through the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. A refresh of the Board will be completed by mid-2022.

We are establishing new advisory structures to ensure the voices of our end user partners are at the forefront of all we do. This includes advisory panels—including an End User Advisory Panel and an International Research Advisory Panel—and refreshed Board committees with external advisors that will inform our Board and guide the direction of the Centre.

The Centre is a national entity and does not have a headquarters as such, but we will have staff established in ‘nodes’ within several major cities to ensure that we can regularly engage with our partners and keep our work grounded and locally relevant. We currently have nodes in Queensland, NSW and Victoria, and we are continuing discussions with other states and territories.

PHOTO: MATT PALMER / UNSPLASH

Partners at the core of our research

Our research approach is highly collaborative—we conduct research with our partners, for use by our partners and the community. This builds on the highly successful processes and practices of the previous CRCs, which have seen the findings of every major research project used by our partners for the benefits of the community, representing a more than six-fold return on every dollar invested.

As such, we have regular discussions

with key stakeholders across the natural hazard sector to guide our initial research program and ongoing priorities. This includes state and territory government agencies, local governments and associations, as well as organisations from the private and not-for-profit sectors, industry partners, research institutions and international research bodies. This multi-party engagement ensures the research outcomes we produce will be of most use to as many Australians as possible, helping to keep our communities, landscapes and infrastructure safe from the impacts of natural hazards.

Australia’s national capability can only be formed through the investment of partners who share our mission of creating a safer and more disasterresilient society. We continue to seek new partners, so anyone interested in contributing to Australia’s natural hazard resilience can reach us at office@naturalhazards.com.au.

Towards final research priorities

One of the key features of the Centre is that its research program will be flexible from the beginning. We will redefine our research plans every year to ensure we are addressing the most relevant and current issues for our partners. Our portfolio of projects will include short-, medium- and longterm projects, enabling us to meet the immediate needs of the nation, as well as committing to solving the more complex issues.

We began developing national research priorities in August 2020 by conducting an extensive series of sector-wide workshops with end users and collecting feedback from research partners and others. These workshops helped us to examine the key research needs for the nation, around the following eight themes: „ communities and workforces of the future „ sustainable, safe and healthy natural landscapes „ resilient built environment „ resilient communities „ situational awareness „ operational response and innovation „ evidence-informed policy, strategy and foresight „ learning from disasters.

We are currently working with our funding partners to finalise these priorities and define the initial biennial research plan.

We look forward to continuing these discussions and meeting with new and existing partners to broaden the scope of natural hazard research in the coming months and years.

For more information about our program, visit www.naturalhazards.com. au/research.

First round of research

A targeted first round of research projects is underway, agreed to as part of the negotiations with the Australian Government for the new Centre last year, with most of our projects to be announced in early 2022. These projects extend and support the use of findings from the Australian Government-funded Black Summer research program, conducted by the CRC, including the role of Indigenous land management in managing fire risk and advancements in fire predictive services technology.

Projects are also looking at how the work on extreme fire behaviour can be translated to keep communities and firefighters safe, including using predictive maps when communicating risk to the community.

This round of research is also examining the creation of a Bushfire Information Database, in partnership with the Australian Research Data Commons, and addressing recommendations from the 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements about the role of data in supporting better decisionmaking. Other approved projects are focusing on post-disaster recovery and on understanding the resilience of lifeline services, such as power, telecommunications, and food and water supply in regional and remote communities.

Details of these and future projects can be found at www.naturalhazards. com.au/research, or by emailing the team at research@naturalhazards.com.au.

Launching our education program

The Centre is committed to supporting and promoting a strong intellectual cohort of researchers who can deliver usable outputs to partners and the wider community. This includes supporting postgraduate research, employment pathways and opportunities for career development of early career researchers.

We recently launched our education program, including postgraduate research scholarships, early career researcher development and industry fellowships and our Associate Student program. You can find all the details at www.naturalhazards.com.au/education.

Quick response funding

Sometimes data needs to be gathered quickly after a natural hazard, so we launched quick response funding in time for summer 2021–22.

This funding supports researchers travelling to areas recently affected by natural hazards to ensure impacts are measured in a timely manner. It builds on the important quick response research from the CRC, which was essential when assessing post-disaster impacts, recovery, data collection, rehabilitation, planning and community response to natural hazards between 2016 and 2021.

Learn more at www.naturalhazards. com.au/news/quick-response-funding.

Strengthening reconciliation through research

Also high on our priority list is strengthening our engagement with First Nations peoples as the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we all live and on which the Centre will conduct research.

Through the CRCs, we have a long history of research engagement on land and fire management with First Nations peoples and now, as a national centre, it is important to us that we continue to learn from the knowledge, contributions and perspectives of First Nations communities. With a strengthened commitment to reconciliation, we are in the process of implementing a Reconciliation Action Plan. This is an important step that is guiding the First Nations-led processes, programs and research activities of the Centre.

There are many more updates to share, all of which you can find on our website at www.naturalhazards.com.au.

For the latest information on Natural Hazards Research Australia, follow @hazardsresearch on social media or sign up to our newsletter at www.naturalhazards.com.au/news.

Natural Hazards Research Australia is the new national centre for natural hazards resilience and disaster risk reduction.