A combined plan to face the hazards

Researchers and the emergency management agencies have combined to develop a long-term plan to ensure ongoing research in fire and natural hazards.

The current national research centre, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, is near the end of its eight-year funding period. Support is gathering to build on its successes with a new centre built around contemporary issues.

The Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC followed more than a decade of research with the Bushfire CRC, which began in 2003. These research centres have brought together all the fire and emergency service and land management agencies in Australia and New Zealand, together with leading researchers across universities, Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia and other key organisations including the Red Cross, the insurance sector and local government.

The research has been funded with several consecutive grants under the Commonwealth Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program. The current funding ends in June 2021.

The sector has now determined to seek more secure ongoing funding beyond 2021 in order to support research over the longer term and to be more responsive to changing environments and demographics.

In a joint meeting in the last fortnight, the Boards of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council - the peak representative body of the industry - the members unanimously agreed to work together to develop a case for a new research centre. As the current research program winds down over the next 18 months, plans for a new research program will start to emerge.

The CEO of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, Dr Richard Thornton, said the current research began in 2013 and represented the needs of the time.

“Six years of research with this CRC has told us much about making communities safer under the threat of fire, flood, cyclone and other natural hazards. Advances in community warnings and education, severe weather forecasting, extreme fire behaviour and building construction, have only been possible because of the cooperation between all the parties at the national level.

“Much of this new knowledge is now guiding the broader emergency sector in its preparations, response and recovery from disasters.

“As the world around us changes in climate, demographics and technology, new issues are emerging that need be worked through. With the 2013 research funds fully allocated and due to expire, there is now no capacity for new collaborative research to work on the natural hazards problems of today.

“The joint agreement by the boards is a fundamental first step in continuing to support research that has benefited communities around Australia and New Zealand,” Dr Thornton said.

Dr Richard Thornton has written a blog on working together for future research, which can be found here.

Joint statement - Boards of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and AFAC

The Boards of Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Council (AFAC) and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC  jointly met to discuss the importance of ongoing research to support the sector beyond the funding of the CRC which ends in June 2021.

The Boards agreed that the AFAC member agencies, emergency management sector more broadly and importantly, the communities they serve and protect, have all derived great value from the investments in the CRC and its predecessors.

The Boards agree that, given the growing and evolving risk landscape in Australia, putting increasing strain on the emergency management sector and affected communities, it is vital to continue a national investment in a sustainable, collaborative research capability and to maintain the capacity developed over the past 15 years.

The Boards agree that the sector needs to act quickly to maintain the existing capability prior to the imminent completion of the current CRC funding. This will involve securing AFAC Agency, State/Territory and Commonwealth funding and support, together with strong buy-in from universities and individual researchers, requiring the CRC and AFAC Agencies (collectively and individually) to prosecute the case.

The Boards agree to establish a joint working group to continue the development of the business case for ongoing, collaborative investment to research in support of the sector