Can birds of different feathers fly together? Improving collaboration for research in regional Australia

Collaboration is vital for addressing complex environmental and natural resource issues; however, history is replete with less than successful examples. Community-based organisations, government agencies, research institutes and others can bring complementary expertise, experience and resources to support long-term collaborative efforts. Social and environmental science researchers from ILWS are investigating the barriers to establishing and maintaining collaboration between landholders, researchers, and government agency staff in the Murray River valley at a time when trust and mutual respect has been eroded by past bad experiences, loss of political bipartisanship and top-down water reform. Preliminary qualitative investigations into collaboration between three organisations in the Murray River valley have helped to identify a lack of common purpose, competition, and poor communication between organisations, as well as external socio-economic drivers and personality traits as barriers to collaboration. Improved understanding of these introspective and public processes can help raise awareness of these barriers and provide a basis for building long-term relations and connectivity based on trust and respect. These are all necessary for instituting effective and much needed research collaborations in regional Australia – collaborations that deliver beneficial outcomes for local communities and the wider public.