$6m to fund risk analysis centre
[ UniNews Vol. 15, No. 7
1 - 15 May 2006 ] By Paul Richiardi
Risk analysis in strategic areas such as biosecurity, natural resources, food and water quality, salinity, global warming, and business, will be the focus of a $6 million Australian Centre of Excellence (CoE) to be established at the University of Melbourne.
The new Australian CoE for Risk Analysis (ACERA) will be officially launched at the University tomorrow (2 May) by Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Peter McGauran.
Drawing on national resources in expertise across diverse disciplines, the Centre will develop tools, systems, advice, training, methods and guidelines, to improve the analysis of risks – initially with a focus on biosecurity.
Work in the Centre will provide services eventually to all levels of government and will generate opportunities for knowledge transfer to industry.
Directing ACERA will be founder and former Director of the University’s Office for Environmental Programs, Professor Mark Burgman (Botany).
Professor Burgman is one of the world’s leading environmental risk analysts and a member of many government scientific advisory panels.
As well as Federal funding, ACERA has substantial funding and in-kind support from the University of Melbourne. The University will provide cash and scholarships worth $200 000 and in-kind support worth $462 000, the Parkville campus-based Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute $100 000 plus in-kind support, and the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology (Botany) $10 000 and in-kind support.
The CoE will work in partnership with federal agencies such as the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Department of Environment and Heritage, state agencies for natural resources, the environment, land management and parks, and local government municipalities and insurance companies and banks.
Strategies used will include working groups of internationally recognised specialists devoted to specific issues; projects managed by ACERA on a contract basis; and research partner projects in which the CoE invests funds to support University or CSIRO-based postgraduate research.
Professor Burgman says ACERA’s postgraduate research training will produce graduates in all disciplines with specialist skills in risk analysis.
“We will support visiting scientists and collaborate with risk research centres overseas and engage the skills and sciences relevant to risk analysis to ensure that Australia remains at the forefront of practical risk assessment,” he says.
ACERA will have a Scientific Committee of leading specialists in areas such as mathematics, statistics, biology, physical science, epidemiology, socio-economics, natural resource management, risk management and the psychology and sociology of risk perception.
“Each of these specialists will provide direct links to a much larger network of professionals on whom the Centre may draw to solve problems, develop initiatives and create new tools for risk analysis,” Professor Burgman says.
University of Melbourne academics joining Professor Burgman in the new Centre include Professor David Fox (Director, Australian Centre for Environmetrics), Professor Danny Samson (Management), Dr Michael McCarthy (Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology), Professor Tony Guttmann (Australian Centre for the Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems), Professors Peter Taylor and Colin Thompson (Mathematics and Statistics), and Drs Jane Elith and Brendan Wintle (Botany).
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