Victoria boasts world-leading, impact-focused disaster and natural hazards research capabilities across multiple universities. These capabilities present unique opportunities for innovation in responding to Victoria’s unique combinations of natural hazards, climate, and community risks. Helping to realise these opportunities, the Victorian Disaster Research Forum aims to better connect and coordinate disaster researchers across Victoria’s universities, with the goal of

reducing the barriers to innovation,
growing disaster research impact, and
better translating research findings into practical disaster resilience and emergency management and recovery applications.

This one-day free and in-person forum in the Melbourne CBD aims to bring together Victoria’s multiple perspectives and multiple research disciplines as the start of an emerging network of interdisciplinary disaster researchers across Victoria’s universities, called the VDRA (Victorian Disaster Research Alliance). The VDRA aims to assist Victorian researchers to grow and diversify pathways to impact, and ultimately to help address Victoria’s unique innovation needs for disaster resilience and natural hazards research.

Who should attend

The Forum is open to all researchers in Victoria with interests in natural hazards and disaster-related research, as well as to practitioners who want to shape an applied disaster research agenda for Victoria.

Outline Program

Session 1: 9:30-10:45

9:00am: Registration opens
9:30am: Opening and Welcome to Country
9:45am: Welcome from Prof Calum Drummond, DVC R&I, RMIT University
10:00am: Opening Keynote from Prof Cheryl Desha, NHRA Science and Innovation Director
10:45: Morning tea and networking

Session 2: 11:15-12:45

11:15am: Session 2 opening
11:25am: University disaster research capability lightning talks from across Victorian universities, including talks from Prof Trent Penman (Uni Melbourne), Prof Briony Rogers (Monash Uni), Prof Joanne Porter (Federation Uni), Prof Khalid Moinuddin (Victoria Uni), Dr Prasad Bhattacharya (Deakin Uni) and Dr Erica Kuligowski (RMIT Uni)
12:45pm: Lunch (provided) and networking

Session 3: 1:30-3:30

1:30pm: Practitioner keynote from Andrew Coghlan, Head of Emergency Services at Australian Red Cross
2:15pm: Panel discussion, with facilitated participant interaction, chaired by Prof Alan Duffy with panelists including Dr Blythe McLennan, Dr Nicole Coombs, and Dr Thomas Duff
3:00pm: Summary, planning and next steps
3:30pm: Close and networking

Get involved

We are actively seeking images, short videos, and other media from the Victorian disaster research community to showcase in the breaks and networking sessions. If you would like to contribute your visual content, please complete this short form. We welcome visual content from all Victorian researchers, even if you aren't able to attend the forum.

Contact

This VDRA initiative brings together researchers from across Victoria's university research sector, led in collaboration between the RMIT Enabling Impact Platforms and the Swinburne Innovative Planet Research Institute. Please contact Michelle Nicolo in the first instance with any questions.