Six new projects were greenlit for development by Natural Hazards Research Australia’s (the Centre) Board from concepts submitted by the Centre’s network of Participants.
Approved at their October meeting, the Centre’s Board was guided by the needs of Participant organisations, ensuring funding supports research that strengthens natural hazards resilience and disaster risk reduction across Australia .
The projects that will be developed into Expressions of Interest for research teams to apply for in the coming months:
- Testing AS3959 construction and exposure assumptions will improve the safety of people in houses during a bushfire. Initial research will begin with small-scale experiments to test ideas and fill knowledge gaps before moving on to full-scale tests.
- Roads, bushfire and landslides: how to mitigate potential compounding natural hazards will improve understanding of how the scale, intensity and frequency of cumulative natural hazards’ affect roadside vegetation management and how this understanding can improve community resilience and response during incidents.
- Systemic risk and systems thinking will bridge the gap in Australia’s approach to systemic disaster risk by analysing existing systemic risk methodologies, processes and approaches in comparable regions and sectors to identify best practices.
- Strengthening and supporting disaster recovery workers: Evidence-based tools for recovery workforce sustainability will improve the mental health, wellbeing, effectiveness and sustainability of Australia’s extensive and growing disaster recovery workforce.
- Understanding conflagration fires addresses Australia's locations that might be at risk of conflagration fires, the conditions needed for conflagration fires to occur and how often these conditions have been seen in the past.
- The evolution of Community Fire Units will comprehensively review Community Fire Units across Australia, assessing their current effectiveness, identifying opportunities for improvement and providing strategic recommendations for their future role in bushfire preparedness, response and community resilience.
Is your organisation a Centre Participant and have knowledge or operational gaps research would solve? The Centre welcomes project idea submissions for potential inclusion in our research program twice a year. The next round of concept submissions will open in early 2026.