Innovative research for wicked problems
A national challenge to encourage new ideas, new thinking and new research. What can you bring to disaster management in Australia?
A national challenge to encourage new ideas, new thinking and new research. What can you bring to disaster management in Australia?
Flex your creative thinking muscles and help revolutionise disaster resilience across Australia.
We’re looking for the best and brightest early career researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students from across Australia to innovate the way we respond to bushfires, floods, storms, cyclones and other natural hazards.
If this sounds like you, the Disaster Challenge and Australia’s emergency management sector want to hear from you. (no prior disaster experience or knowledge needed!)
With a national final and prizes, what can you and bring that is new, exciting, bold and will make a real difference in the lives of Australian communities?
Entries close 5:00pm AEST, 15 June 2025
Questions, ideas, queries? Register for this year’s online briefing, 12:00pm AEST, 15 May 2025 and hear from the organisers and past participants to make your submission stand out from the crowd.
The Challenge
How can we innovate our infrastructure – physical, social, green and other types of infrastructure, community and place to enable effective and affordable community-led place-based disaster resilience? This could be at any scale, for local communities, local government authorities, state government or national.
“the basic physical and organisational structures and facilities needed for the operation of a society.” Oxford Dictionary
We recently witnessed the impacts of disasters at-scale in Australia and overseas. From cities to remote communities, it is imperative to plan ahead – to be ahead of ready.
As communities confront repeated and increasingly severe multi-hazard and multi-consequence natural hazards, a key but challenging priority is to ensure reliable infrastructure of all kinds – physical, social, green, and other types of infrastructure.
Conventionally, infrastructure has meant physical infrastructure focused largely on physical assets, including roads, rail, energy transmission, while more recently, social and community infrastructure has emerged to encompass ways communities can be supported to support themselves during disasters, which includes places, services, programs and initiatives that improve liveability, physical and mental health. Green infrastructure is a new way of speaking about using nature to protect and mitigate the effects of natural hazards.
The time, money and resources needed to conceptualise, design, construct and implement infrastructure is significant. While the time and cost of physical infrastructure such as a road, bridge or powerline is well understood, other types of infrastructure, including green and social infrastructure options may be unprecedented or not well understood.
Half a day of your life to put together your entry could make a difference to communities around Australia. Team entries welcome.
The Disaster ChallengeThe Disaster Challenge is a national challenge to encourage new ideas, new thinking and new research.
The Disaster Challenge calls out to early career researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students across Australia – it is your chance to make a difference with innovative ideas and solutions for the wicked problems the country faces with natural hazards.
Hosted by Natural Hazards Research Australia with support from universities and emergency management organisations, the Disaster Challenge invites the best and brightest minds in our universities to put their creative talents into helping us solve the trickiest problems that surround how we deal with floods, bushfires, storms, cyclones and other natural hazards.
A wicked problem is one that is urgent, but difficult to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements that are often difficult to recognise or evaluate.
With a national final and prizes, what innovation can you bring that Australia hasn’t done yet?
The Disaster Challenge 2025 is hosted with support from universities and emergency management organisations. It will take place in three phases. The first phase is to enter your concept – we want to hear your team’s idea for addressing the wicked problem.
The judges will then review and select the best entries for the Disaster Challenge Final using the judging criteria. Up to three finalists will be selected.
To bring your ideas to life, finalists will be supported with academic and industry mentors to assist them to take their idea to the next level. If required, finalists will have access to equal financial, academic and creative support to get the best out of their ideas, as well as support for up to three members of each finalist team to attend the Disaster Challenge Final.
Finalists will come together in Tasmania at a special public event in early October to pitch their brilliant ideas to a judging panel of disaster management experts.
Reasons to enter the Disaster Challenge
The winning team will receive:
The Disaster Challenge is about how you take your knowledge, your ideas, your thinking and your experience and make a difference to disaster management.
The Disaster Challenge aims to encourage as much diversity in solution designs as possible. Just as there are no single right answers to complex problems, the nature of the issued challenge demands entrants look for highly innovative solutions. Applications are particularly encouraged from entrants that include and represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, culturally and linguistically diverse people, people with disability, LGBTIQ+ people, and people with family and caring responsibilities.
This is a research-informed challenge. It is about applying research knowledge to a wicked problem. Each entry will be evaluated against judging criteria. You/your team does not need emergency management or disaster expertise. The Disaster Challenge is about innovation from all areas that can be used to benefit disaster management in Australia.
The problem is so wicked it does not allow for a simple response. Your entry needs to take into account the complexities of the problems, the trade-offs between various solutions, the people impacted for better or for worse, the costs involved and who needs to pay for it.
You are not expected to solve the entire problem. By their nature, wicked problems are notoriously difficult to resolve and cannot be solved in a single step. Instead, the Disaster Challenge is looking for ideas that can help Australia take a step in the right direction towards tackling this particular wicked problem.
Your entry will be more successful if it does not focus on better technological solutions – better fire hoses, more satellites, information websites or apps, warning and alarm systems, bigger water bombing planes or fire/flood proof building materials. These may address problems, but they are not solutions to wicked problems.
We want to hear your ideas to develop a solution.
Enter the Disaster Challenge by outlining your/team’s idea on how to address the wicked problem. At this stage, we’re not expecting complete solutions – that comes later.
To get started, all you need to do is:
You can explain your concept in either written or short video format, using the Entry form. Note video entries are judged on the concept only, using the same judging criteria as written entries. Production qualities will not be taken into account – we just need to see and hear your idea.
Applications should address:
For full assessment criteria, see the Guide for Entrants.
Finalists will have an opportunity to work with a team of mentors to help take the idea to the next level. That’s where you will translate your idea into a solution that you can showcase at the Disaster Challenge Final, in front of people who work in emergency management, who are looking for better ways to improve public safety and reduce pain and suffering as a result of natural hazards.
“The people we’ve met during the Disaster Challenge means we’re optimistic of collaborating with people from a wide range of organisations and industries to develop a prototype AI chat bot providing disaster information to really help people understand their risks and prepare and respond to disasters.”
Craig Ridep-Morris, Disaster Challenge winning team 2024
“It was such a rewarding, challenging and just incredible experience, where I got to meet lots of new people and hear lots of new innovations. If you were considering entering the Disaster Challenge I would say absolutely go for it – you will not find a more rewarding, challenging and just inspiring challenge to be a part of.”
Lydia Wardale, Disaster Challenge winner 2023
“The great thing about the Disaster Challenge is that it really gives us the opportunity to hear from early researchers about some new and innovative ideas. As a disaster management sector, that gives us the opportunity to really push the limits and think about what is new and fresh coming our way that we can incorporate in to the way we do disaster management.”
Kath Ryan, Executive Manager Public Information and Warnings, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. 2022 Disaster Challenge Final judge.
The 2025 Disaster Challenge is coordinated by Natural Hazards Research Australia and hosted with support from universities and emergency management organisations.
Thank you to our 2025 Working Group:
We acknowledge the traditional custodians across all the lands on which we live and work, and we pay our respects to Elders both past, present and emerging. We recognise that these lands and waters have always been places of teaching, research and learning.