13 2019 ANNUAL REPORT GLOBAL CHALLENGES PROGRAM
CHALLENGE AREA
Building Resilient Communities Inequality, vulnerable populations and disaster resilience.
Challenge Leader
SENIOR PROFESSOR CHRIS GIBSON
As 2019 comes to a close, the east coast of Australia is engulfed in fire and smoke. This comes after unprecedented wildfires earlier afflicted California, and deadly heatwaves struck throughout Europe. Student climate strikes across the world explode in number and scale – a reminder of both the urgency of responding to planetary problems, and the necessity of simultaneously addressing injustice, especially across generations. Now more than ever we need leadership and interdisciplinary collaborations to address the big picture issues. With such problems in mind, we began this year with energy to unite people on the new Building Resilient Communities challenge. Several teams have already made progress, tackling problems such as antimicrobial resistance, kerbside waste, resilient energy systems at the fringe of grid, and hate discourse via social media. Especially exciting is the new Olivier Ferrer Fund to support research, which has been established as a special initiative, thanks to a generous donation from two young philanthropists. The donors are looking for bold ideas that will make a tangible difference to vulnerable communities.
The goal is to push boundaries and examine core, systemic causes of disadvantage and the climate crisis, and how we can boldly address these issues from different perspectives. This funding will support researchers undertaking impactful global research in the areas of climate action, inequality and injustice, and the politics of refugee and migrant movements in an era of populist nationalism. We are also delighted to appoint Tasch Arndt to the team, as Research Officer for Building Resilient Communities. Tasch’s background is in socio-ecological research; she holds a Masters degree in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam. We can’t wait to see our teams’ projects, ideas, and evolving activities throughout 2020.
