Queensland Disaster Research Alliance (QDRA) manager Dr Paul Barnes wants to help government and businesses understand the value of university research in mitigating, preparing for and responding to disasters.

Dr Barnes has spent the past three months in his QDRA manager role connecting with the seven university members of the Alliance. His role is co-funded by the university members.

His focus is on promoting research collaboration as a strategy for enhancing funding success among QDRA members, while growing recognition of the QDRA by engaging with government, and private sector groups.

“In addition to supporting success in funding the QDRA wants to emphasise the value of engagement with its university members on disaster risk reduction research as being something into which both public and private sector end-users would want to invest more time and resources,” he says.

While acknowledging core University roles of publishing theoretical and applied research findings, and learning remains as important as ever, he wants to assist in creating settings where researchers can deliver translational research outputs that are timely, utilisable, and used by practitioners, policy makers and governments to enhance disaster risk reduction, community safety, regional betterment, economic viability, and ultimately national resilience.

“In terms of disaster-related policy and governance advice Australian Universities form a sovereign capability that arguably has been underutilised in the past.  An additional goal embodied in the Alliance is that members be recognised as key partners in delivering useful outcomes in terms of disaster risk reduction and resilience, and that there is expanded access to the plethora of research and development capacities they possess – this is particularly relevant in Queensland given it is one of the most disaster-impacted states in Australia,” Dr Barnes says.

“Universities can help governments and businesses address the challenges of disaster-related decision-making and complex questions about the capabilities needed to ensure enhanced disaster risk reduction now and into the future. There’s an opportunity with the Alliance, to generate and bring together the capabilities and strengths of different institutions that historically may have had limited opportunities to collaborate,” he says.

“We need to think differently. We need to think and research as a collective with the benefits of such collaboration at the centre of our thinking.”

Dr Barnes will work with the seven QDRA university members to map current research activities in disaster management within their institutions. This will include identifying areas of research, teaching being undertaken in each university, and within existing research partnerships, in a range of disaster-related areas.

This work will include assisting member universities to identify unique combinations of their current disaster management research activities and then assisting in facilitating processes for them to jointly respond to opportunities for funded research.

“Part of my motivation comes from recognition that Queensland faces an evolving disaster risk landscape: ranging from the direct impact of natural hazards to cascading effects on community health, supply chain continuity, loss of building stocks and the added potential for significant essential service failure.  Coping with such disruptions is a challenge for governments, businesses, and especially communities with a full range of consequences that are often difficult to anticipate let alone control.”

“The complexity and uncertainty of these realities make the work of agencies tasked with supporting local, regional, and organisational resilience and disaster risk reduction even more complex.”

Such realities also make the activities of a state-wide University alliance tasked with combining research and development expertise in support of the public and private sectors and importantly communities a critical public good, he said.” 

“Having worked in higher education and within government I can see how accessing the capabilities, deep skills, and experience embodied in our universities can aid regional and state-wide decision making. I see great benefits in working with groups to see where the dots can be joined.”

He brings a wealth of experience from within the public sector, where he worked on disaster management, community safety, risk governance issues and targeted policy development and as a research-active practitioner-academic in applied risk and operational crisis management.    

While Dr Barnes has an office at Griffith University, he will regularly visit the other universities in the alliance.

Dr Barnes has a range of activities planned to bring alliance members together and to promote the work of researchers in the disaster space and to support research funding success across the consortium.

The seven university members of the QDRA are:

  • Central Queensland University
  • Griffith University
  • James Cook University
  • Queensland University of Technology
  • Sunshine Coast University
  • University of Queensland
  • University of Southern Queensland