Industry, government and research partners of the One Basin CRC have begun to come together to identify the shared challenges to be addressed through the initial phase of the CRC’s research program.

The One Basin CRC is a focused collaboration developing policy, technical and financial solutions to support and reduce exposure to climate, water and environmental threats in the Murray-Darling Basin. It is an unprecedented national collaboration of 85 partners in the Murray-Darling Basin, including the University of Melbourne; the Goyder Institute (and its partners The University of Adelaide, Flinders University, the Department for Environment and Water and CSIRO); the Australian National University; Charles Sturt University; Hort Innovation; the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA); Sensand Technologies and the University of Sydney.

Over the past few months, Regional Hub Leaders have been planning a series of One Basin CRC Partner Forums based in the five Regional Hubs that are spread across the Basin. The first of the Forums was held last week at the Loxton Research Centre, where the Loxton Hub will be located. The Forum was attended by 71 participants from 38 partner organisations. There was great energy, optimism and collaborative spirit across all of the participants, with a clear enthusiasm for the opportunity presented by the CRC’s establishment.

These first Regional Hub Partner Forums are focussed on connecting the One Basin CRC Partners within the regions of each Hub, as well as providing the opportunity initiate the CRC’s Challenge Identification process. This is an important step for shaping the focus of the CRC during its first few years by identifying the challenges that will set the broad context and priorities for One Basin CRC’s co-design process, which will commence in early 2023 once the CRC is fully up and running. This will set the CRC up well to start co-designing the research program in early 2023 to address identified challenges, with projects to commence in the 2023/24 financial year. This will allow time to plan these projects carefully, with involvement of all One Basin CRC Partners and co-design with those who will use the solutions identified through the CRC’s research.

The next Partner Forum at Griffith (New South Wales) is currently underway (30-31 August), and this will be followed by Forums at Mildura (Victoria; 7-8 September) and Goondiwindi (Queensland; 19-20 September).

For more information please see One Basin CRC or contact Goyder Institute Director, Dr Kane Aldridge. For regular updates please contact Emma Payne to sign up to the One Basin newsletter. For those considering attending the International Irrigation Congress in Adelaide in October, there will be a session on the One Basin CRC. More information is available here https://www.icid2022.com.au/one-basin-crc/.