As my retirement date approaches, this will be my penultimate blog for the centre as Natural Hazards Research Australia CEO. We hope to soon announce who will step into the role after June.
In the meantime there are many important and exciting things happening at the Centre. Recently we announced the latest two new Board members, Dominique Hogan-Doran SC and Oliver Costello. Both Dominque and Oliver will bring great experience and insight into the Board discussions and decisions. We look forward to them joining their first Board meeting in June. Dominique will join the Board’s Risk, Audit and Compliance Committee and Oliver will join the Education and Training Committee.
At its last meeting the Board approved some key documents that will set the direction for the Centre. These include the 10-Year Research Strategy, Research Priorities and Data Management Framework. These documents are available to download from our website’s Corporate Documents tab.
The 10-Year Research Strategy is a pivotal document that outlines the strategic framework for our research program and its associated activities, including a portfolio approach to research investment; tactical, applied and strategic investments in research; our approach to research utilisation and implementation; and our education and training programs. This strategy will be reviewed at the mid-way point of the Centre’s current funding.
The Research Priorities were a major undertaking by the Centre and its stakeholders. We committed to update a similar publication completed under the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, during the first year of this Centre. The Centre brought together many representatives from organisations across the emergency management sector, from public, private and not-for-profit organisations covering mitigation, response, recovery and resilience. This was conducted in two major parts—the first was a series of virtual workshops and then a discussion document was circulated for comment after considering the workshop outcomes. The Centre synthesised the feedback and compiled the final set of priorities which have been used to inform the Centre’s research strategy and set initial priority areas for our first years of operation.
One of the defining factors of the Centre will be an increased focus on the creation, curation and accessibility of research data sets. The Centre’s Data Management Framework outlines the core aspects of how we will achieve this.
The remaining focus for the establishment phase documentation is the finalisation of the first Biennial Research Plan, which will outline the core aspects of the Centre’s investment rounds over the next two years. This plan will be reviewed annually to ensure the work we are undertaking is meeting the current needs of our partners and is progressing towards implementation. It is anticipated that this plan will be endorsed by the Board in late June.
It is a busy time for the Centre as we are co-hosting the Fire and Climate Conference with the International Association of Wildland Fire in Melbourne next week and are also planning for our first annual research conference to be held later this year. In late April we launched the Disaster Challenge, with support from stakeholders in Queensland, and last week held an online briefing to explore the wicked problem in greater detail. If you are a postgraduate student or early career researcher, we want to hear how you would address the wicked problem: to engage a transient sector of the community with disaster preparation information. Get your idea in to us by 30 June – submit and find out more here.