Research Advisory Forum - Sydney 2018

The April 2018 Research Advisory Forum (RAF) was held in Sydney at the New South Wales Rural Fire Service Headquarters on 12-13 April. RAFs are important CRC gatherings held every six months, showcasing the latest research from one half of our research program. They are an opportunity for CRC partners, project leaders and end-users in the CRC to work together, and gain an overview of the research and utilisation activities within the CRC, as well as allowing for more intensive discussion on the progress of each project. They also provide opportunities for informal networking. The format includes Three Minute Thesis presentations by CRC PhD students.

This RAF focused on the Resilience and Policy  themes of the research program, with 136 end-users, researchers and PhD students attending. Projects from the following clusters presented, and the presentations can be downloaded below from the 'resources' tab:

• Governance and institutional knowledge 
• Economics, policy and decision-making
• Scenario and loss analysis
• Communications and warnings
• Emergency management capability
• Understanding and measuring social resilience 
• Sustainable volunteering

The RAF had two parallel activities:

• Stakeholder briefings in a large auditorium
• Breakout sessions to the stakeholder briefings to support detailed project level discussions between researchers and end-user representatives.

The RAF focused on research utilisation activities for existing projects, and the new projects that are a part of the CRC 2017-2021 research program. 

Many end-user representatives involved with the clusters attended, along with project leaders, researchers and PhD students, which enabled productive cluster and project workshops to take place outside of the presentation sessions. Each project gave a 20 minute presentation on the state of the project, covering the research outcomes that have been achieved and how the research is being transition into use by CRC partners. Four PhD students, Liberty Pascua, Darryl Dixon, Peter Middleton and Alan Green, presented their research using the Three Minute Thesis format, while many other PhD students attended the RAF. The aim of these students attending is to build networks between our next generation of researchers and our end-user partners, and expose them more closely to issues facing our sector.