Latest on scientific diversity

This is the June 2017 newsletter from the Scientific diversity, scientific uncertainty and risk mitigation policy and planning project (RMPP), with updates for project end-users.

New since April

Since our last report in April we have continued to work on our key project activities:

• Analysing the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley case study
• Bringing together the end-of-project synthesis
• Organising the end-of-project utilisation workshop in Sydney
• Planning for the comparative scenario exercise in Alberta, Canada
• Ongoing work on publications and presentations

New publication (from late last year):

• Magee, L, Handmer, J, Neale, T & Ladds, M 2016, 'Locating the intangible: integrating a sense of place into cost estimations of natural disasters' , Geoforum, vol. 77, December, pp. 61-72.

Presentation:

• Neale, T ‘Embracing Uncertainty’, presentation to AFAC’s Predictive Services Group, 15 June 2017. This talk provided a brief on what the social sciences have to say about the social dimensions of predictive services as well as discussing the RMPP project, its findings, and a new research project on fire behaviour analysis (see further below). The presentation was well-received and Dr Neale is now in discussions with the Group about its future research needs.
• Weir, JK, ‘Influencing the policy and practice of disaster resilience’, panel, Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC Showcase 2017: Research Driving Change, Adelaide, 4 July 2017.

The other news is that the formal project has now ended, although it will continue under CRC utilisation until 30 December 2017. This will include some further research activities. Further updates will be provided over the next six months.

Upcoming

There are three upcoming presentations: 

• Weir, JK, Neale, T and L Clarke ‘Science is critical, but it is not everything: our findings’, AFAC conference, Sydney, 4 September 2017
• Dovers, S, ‘Emergency management and policy: research impact and utilization’, AFAC conference, Sydney, 5 September 2017
• Clarke, L, Cinque, P, Abood, M, Weir, JK and T Neale ‘Making sense of Hawkesbury-Nepean flood risk: Bringing science and society together’, AFAC conference, Sydney, 6 September 2017.

These three papers will each have a paper published as part of the conference proceedings.

Related research

You will be delighted to know that we have developed two new major research projects directly arising out of the RMPP project.

Hazards, culture and indigenous communities

This project is co-lead by Jessica Weir and Tim Neale and continues our interrogation of how knowledge is used in policy and practice. This time we are drawing on the particular experiences of Aboriginal communities in south east Australia and the natural hazard practitioners who work with them. Find out more at https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/research/hazard-resilience/3397

Fire behaviour analysts

Tim Neale has successfully won funding from Deakin University to pursue a project interviewing fire behaviour analysts, as part of his longer term interest in the role of models in risk mitigation.