Establishing a wider view of impact

Partners, donors and governments desire compelling evidence of how investment in research is translating into tangible benefits, or ‘impacts’ as the neologism goes.

At the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC we have been consistently collecting evidence of research impact and we’d love to have your input. Looking back on your engagement with us, we invite you to share a vignette of how you have put CRC research into action, or where you have seen others do so. The Research Impact survey is a call to participate in developing this picture of CRC impact. Whether it be direct or in-direct, we want to hear from you!

We are close to the end of our eight-year research program. Over this period, we have amassed a lengthy list of transformative social, economic and environmental impacts. To further understand how our research is making a difference we have developed an impact database. The database is strengthening our understanding of how our research program is benefiting our partners, the emergency management sector and the broader Australian community.

With close to 300 examples logged in the database, it is apparent the research impact is extensive. The following isn’t comprehensive by any means, but an indicator of the broad reach of the CRC’s research:

• Better warnings to ensure action – Mackay Regional Council has updated its emergency warning communications as a result of accessing resources. A council staffer was prompted to access these research outputs after seeing a televised interview with researcher Dr Mel Taylor (Macquarie University).
• Models for relief and recovery – Emergency Management Victoria has embedded the Australian Disaster Resilience Index as a relief and recovery tool, using the Index to explore the characteristics and attributes of communities to enable a better understanding of relief and recovery if an emergency were to occur in specific Victorian communities.
• Satellites to help show when the bush is ready to burn – Real-time insights from the Australian Flammability Monitoring System were fed into operational decisions during the 2019/20 bushfire season with Dr Marta Yebra (Australian National University) embedded in the NSW Rural Fire Service headquarters.
• Preventing future flood deaths – Flood fatalities research has provided empirical data to inform the design of the 2017 NSW SES flood warning advertising campaign, enabling effective targeting of messages to at risk demographics.
• Read about many other impacts here.

Many of the benefits flowing from our research have also been documented in the recent independent evaluation report from SGS Economics & Planning (see Appendix 1 of the report available here for detailed case studies). Benefits have also been documented in The value of research from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC report from RMIT University researchers for The value of disaster research project.

The picture of the CRC’s impact is emergent and dynamic. Through this impact database we are seeing the true depth and breadth of the CRC’s impact. Providing your input via the Research Impact survey will help us further develop this view. Access the survey here.