Future Earth Australia is partnering and convening with our members and other entities on our ‘Reimagining adaptation’ initiative. This initiative consists of a series of roundtables with broad sectoral representation. To complement this, a group of female early- and mid-career researchers from our member cohort are producing a journal paper, and several steering committee members are producing a policy synthesis paper. These papers and the roundtable outcomes will together inform the framing of the ‘Future Earth National Adaptation Summit’, which is anticipated to take place later in 2020 or early 2021.
The Future Earth Australia Sustainable cities and regions strategy is now in its implementation phase. We have strong interest from partners and sectors to take a whole-of-sector approach in implementing a network of urban system innovation hubs, across which Future Earth Australia would play a national coordinating role.
With the generous support of Melbourne’s Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, Future Earth Australia will be developing a national ten-year strategy for sustainable oceans and coasts. This strategy will represent a unique, cross-sectoral and transdisciplinary effort to improve Australia’s ocean and coastal future. Together we will confirm the most significant issues in meeting multiple ocean and coastal sustainability goals in Australia and the associated major knowledge gaps. This will be the second targeted strategy created by Future Earth Australia, following the successful development of the Sustainable Cities and Regions strategy launched last December at the State of Australian Cities Conference. The members of the Expert Working Group who will provide strategic direction to the oceans and coasts project will be announced on our website shortly.
Future Earth Australia has launched its call for communities to take part in its new community science for sustainability initiative. We are inviting communities to partner with Future Earth Australia and a pro bono scientist to co-produce a community science research project to address the community’s sustainability priorities. These projects will be facilitated by Future Earth Australia in partnership with the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which is bringing its exceptionally successful community science model Thriving Earth Exchange to Australia. Having already received expressions of interest on issues such as the circular economy and waste, community climate adaptation, and revegetation in a warming world from groups in Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and the Northern Territory, we look forward to selecting community partners at the end of June.
The Future Earth Australia Early-Career Researcher and Practitioner (ECRP) Program has been running successfully for two years, bringing together ECRPs from across Australia to learn from each other and top experts in their fields, all while developing a transdisciplinary network of peers in the field of sustainability.
In light of the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Future Earth Australia moved its ECRP program online to a series of interactive webinars. These webinars run for three consecutive weeks and are organised around a central theme.
To date, Future Earth Australia has organised two series of webinars, with themes of ‘The urban’ and ‘Oceans and coasts’, the latter of which commenced on 18 June. Find out more about our webinar series and keep up-to-date with future events.
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