The Victorian Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub

The Victorian Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub commenced operations in 2021. The vision for the hub is for an innovative and profitable Victorian agriculture sector with sustainable landscapes, and resourceful and adaptable regional communities. Through the hub, farm businesses will be better informed, more productive, and more profitable when future droughts occur.

Background

Commonwealth funding will support the establishment of eight Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs with each hub focusing on providing networks for researchers, primary producers, and community groups to work together to enhance drought resilient practices within their focus region and to become flagship precincts for agricultural innovation.

Federation University is a consortium partner on the Victoria hub led by the University of Melbourne and is supported by $8M funding over four years from the Commonwealth Government’s Future Drought Fund.

The vision for the hub is to see an innovative and profitable agricultural sector in Victoria. This means sustainable landscapes, and resourceful and adaptable regional communities. Through the hub, farm businesses will be better informed, more productive, and more profitable in the face of future droughts.

Outcomes

Hubs will translate pre-existing research, knowledge, and innovation around drought resilience, and support their effective uptake through the extension, adoption, testing and expansion of innovative solutions and commercialisation. The hubs will provide a vehicle for influencing and informing future research investment.

Innovation

Federation University through CeRDI will oversee the delivery of digital solutions for the implementation of innovation within nodes and across the Victorian Hub.

Approach

Currently in its establishment phase, the hub is a consortia of research providers and research users with a regional focus. This network of stakeholders will work together to plan and undertake co-designed, and demand driven drought resilience research, assisting Australian farmers and communities to prepare for, and become more resilient to the impact of drought. Stakeholders include primary producers, grower groups, industry, researchers, entrepreneurs, education institutions and governments.

Associate Professor Helen Thompson represents Federation University through involvement on the governance group and as the Hub Lead for Digital Platform Innovations.