Q&A: perspectives from the sector

PERSPECTIVES FROM THE SECTOR

In this edition, AFAC CEO Rob Webb interviews recently appointed CEO of Natural Hazards Research Australia, Andrew Gissing.

ROB WEBB

AFAC

Andrew Gissing addresses emergency management communications professionals at the EMPA conference in May 2022.

You’re the new CEO at Natural Hazards Research Australia (NHRA), which was established just over a year ago now. How has it been to make a fresh start, and what is your vision for NHRA moving forward?

I am excited to join the talented NHRA team and to work with our partners, leading tangible change through research, science, and innovation to enhance the safety, resilience, and sustainability of communities to natural hazards. This feels especially urgent right now as we see much of Victoria and NSW being hit with devastating flooding, while other parts of NSW and south-east Queensland are still recovering from similar incidents, and many communities are rebuilding after Black Summer.

NHRA is a national research capability serving emergency management, government, industry, and the community. We deliver research that is useful and actionable, supported by a culture that puts utilisation at the centre of our decisionmaking, to ensure that our research makes a difference in keeping communities safe. There are many opportunities to advance our research, particularly in the ways we collect data and how we use it to answer research problems. A cross-disciplinary approach to our work is key in building future capability.

PHOTO: NHRA

AFAC’s members have noted just how good NHRA’s move to a research ‘node’ model with managers placed across the country has been. How does this new model shift the way you engage with your researchers and end users?

Partners are at the core of our purpose and our evolved operating model means we are better able to connect with them through a dedicated research manager for each state and territory. This is already helping us to build stronger relationships as we work with partners to identify research needs and to share research knowledge. For example, we have exciting new projects underway about public predictive maps with the Bureau of Meteorology, AFAC and the Country Fire Authority; Indigenous management with NAILSMA [the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance]; and lifeline resilience for remote communities with the Australian Resilience Centre.

Our research managers do excellent work to maintain these close relationships, and we now have formal partnerships with almost every major emergency management agency in the country. This is testament to our partnership development and will serve to strengthen our research management and utilisation capabilities. We have plans to expand and strengthen this capability moving forward.

The node model also means that we can quickly develop new projects in response to natural hazards. For example, in response the east coast floods this year, we worked with key NSW and Queensland academic and industry partners to gather urgent data on how those floods impacted community members. A node-based research model makes this kind of post-disaster research easier and more meaningful.

One of NHRA’s objectives is translating research into action. How are you achieving this? And where are the opportunities we can seize?

Effective translation begins with project definition and continues through the life of the project. We work with our partners to shape research directions and to ensure that any research we do has the best possible chance of being used by the sector. We are focused not only on defining the research needs of our partners and the nation, but also on having a clear understanding of the desired outcomes—for the sector and for communities—and properly evaluating how those outcomes are translated into action. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Each project receives tailored translation based on context and needs. We have already approved more than 30 projects since July 2021, each with exciting opportunities to inform practice.

There are always opportunities to strengthen translation and knowledge exchange between partners and researchers—for example, via education and training initiatives such as industry placements. An example is our current project using Black Summer

bushfire research to inform a range of professional development and education modules for fire behaviour analysts. We will continue exploring possible training and education opportunities as we develop a stronger utilisation focus over the coming years.

How can we foster innovation in the fire and emergency services sector? What is the next frontier for the sector’s knowledge and capability development?

Disasters of the future will be different to the disasters of today. We need to ensure that we are investing in the right research questions to build capability for future disasters. In my view, we need to work closely with disaster resilience experts—including First Nations communities—to identify future priorities, considering the challenges and opportunities of coming decades. With this knowledge, thought leadership, collaborative working, and our research, science, and innovation, we can explore opportunities between end users, industry, and researchers.

Engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders is an essential part of driving innovation, as evidenced by our recent successful Disaster Challenge initiative, which engaged researchers and end users across multiple disciplines to find new solutions to a wicked natural hazards problem.

Your background is in risk—what are the risks you see for the fire and emergency services sector moving forward, and how can we minimise their impact?

As a nation, we have many challenges that we must address to safeguard the prosperity of future generations. These cross the environmental, geopolitical, technological, economic, and social domains and are becoming all too familiar during times of disaster. We must move beyond describing the problems and focus on delivering solutions to these grand challenges— we don’t need more think-tanks, we need do-tanks.

For the emergency services sector, this requires a focus on risk reduction supported by stronger partnerships with local government, community organisations, and industry in a wholeof-community approach. We must understand the nature of future risk, the best opportunities to reduce it, and the effectiveness of those efforts. The capacity of our communities to be resilient will become increasingly important, as will the need for emergency services to work with existing capabilities within communities.

PHOTO: NHRA

Collaboration is at the core of NHRA’s business—how are you connecting industry with knowledge to support community safety?

Building on the knowledge networks of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, we have a broad outreach strategy to connect with emergency management, government, industry, and community partners. Over the last 12 months, we have worked closely with our partners to define the national research priorities that will guide our research, both for the nation and for NHRA.

We have just held a Natural Hazards Research Forum on priority research topics—such as community resilience, healthy landscapes, innovation, and future workforce needs—that brought together 300 end users and researchers from across Australia to build relationships and validate our research and utilisation directions. We will continue to hold regular events and forums that connect industry with knowledge holders. We have also established an End User Advisory Panel, a forum for senior partner executives to advise us on our strategic directions.

Ultimately, collaboration drives knowledge sharing, translation, and implementation to create positive change. Being partner-driven, we enable partners to put forward research concept proposals for consideration as part of our research program development. This allows for the co-design of projects and integrates partners into our processes. I encourage all stakeholders to engage in our programs and to follow our updates via our regular events, newsletters, and social media.

Andrew Gissing introduces the NHRA Reconciliation Action Plan at the inaugural Natural Hazards Research Forum.

Disasters of the future will be different to the disasters of today. We need to ensure that we are investing in the right research questions to build capability for future disasters.