A new project on vegetation at the rural-urban interface is now open for expressions of interest.
Part of Natural Hazards Research Australia’s core program, the Bushfire risk at the rural-urban interface project will explore the changing characteristics of vegetation in disturbed areas at the rural-urban interface and will improve our understanding of extreme fire behaviours in fragmented interface fuels.
Rural-urban interfaces are areas of high-exposure to fire. This interdisciplinary project will progress the understanding of how we can reduce risks at the rural-urban interface.
The key areas of focus will include:
- how we can better support community action
- the behaviour and modelling of bushfires in interface areas
- the evaluation of effective and innovative mitigation strategies.
Expressions of Interest are open until 11:59pm AEDT on 23 October 2022 to research@naturalhazards.com.au. EOIs must be prepared using the Centre EOI submission form. Find out more about this project here.
Frequently asked questions
Q) Is there a preference for a project team to be from a single research organisation, or from across multiple organisations?
A) The Centre has no preference for either a single organisation or a multi-organisation project team. EOIs will be accepted from either and will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria in the same way.
Q) Can the proposed project team include researchers from government agencies (i.e., CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology) or research consultancies, as well as university-based researchers?
A) EOIs will be accepted from multi-organisation project teams, and project teams can include researchers at government agencies and research consultancies. The proposed project team's capacity to undertake the project will be evaluated in the same way whether researchers are university-, consultancy- or agency-based.
Q: What is the budget for the project?
A: The Centre has not specified a budget for this project intentionally. We request applicants to propose a budget for what they think the project requires to meet the outcomes. The research team should note and consider the value for money criteria when proposing their budget.
Q) Would academic salaries (excluding administrative overheads) be eligible to budget?
A) Yes, academic salaries can be included within the project budget, but only when they are direct project costs and their salary is not already covered elsewhere. E.g. the salary costs of a contract researcher who is actively working on the project can be included up to the FTE component they are contributing. However, the salary costs of a tenured academic who is already paid through the university/research organisation would be included as an in-kind contribution up to the amount of their FTE contribution to the project.
Further information about upcoming research projects
Further EOIs will open in coming months for a range of different research projects.