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Centre for Risk and Community Safety
About us
The Centre for Risk and Community Safety was established in 2001 and is a collaborative research program by Geospatial Science (now the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University), Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES) (now the Fenner School for Environment and Society, Australian National University), and Emergency Management Australia (now merged into the Attorney General’s Department, Canberra).
Aims
- To undertake applied research supporting the achievement of safe, resilient communities, through continuous improvement in emergency management.
- To help identify and satisfy the strategic research needs of emergency management.
Our primary focus is on Australia, but it is important that the Centre’s work contribute to and draw on the material provided through global research and experience.
Recent achievements
- Completion of two doctoral dissertations in early 2012: both students are now Research Fellows in the Centre.
- Completion of the IPCC Special Report on Extrememes (2012) and the Summary for Policy Makers. The director of the Centre, Prof John Handmer, is a Coordinating Lead Author for the report and an author of the summary. CRACs members Adriana Keating and Monique Ladds (formerly of CRACs) are contributing authors.
- The Centre hosted a one-day, multi-stakeholder workshop titled “Visions of Sharing Responsibility for Disaster Resilience” on the 29 March, 2012. The workshop was organised by Dr Blythe McLennan and Prof John Handmer on behalf of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and the Emergency Management Network of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF).
- A special session was held at the International Association of Wildland Fire’s 3rd Human Dimensions of Wildland Fire Conference in Seattle, 17-19th April 2012. Organised by Dr Blythe McLennan and titled ‘Shared Responsibility for Community Wildfire Safety in Australia: What it is, how we do it and how we might do it better’, the session brought together policy, legal and social research being conducted in this area at RMIT, ANU and the University of Canberra as a part of the Bushfire CRC’s research program.
- Prof John Handmer was invited to give a keynote presentation at the 2011 Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) Conference in Beijing, Oct 31-Nov 2, 2011. The conference was hosted by the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk International Programme Office and the China Association for Science and Technology.
- In March 2012 the Centre hosted Lily Yumagulova, a visiting PhD student from the School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Canada. Lily’s research examines the role of institutional adaptation to environmental risk in cities.
- Awards and recognition received:
- Judge’s poster award – AFAC/Bushfire CRC Annual Conference, Sydney 2011 (Dr Blythe McLennan)
- Bushfire CRC Special Recognition Award 2010, presented at the AFAC/Bushfire CRC Annual Conference, Darwin (Prof John Handmer)
- Bushfire CRC Excellence (Student) Award 2009, AFAC/Bushfire CRC Annual Conference, Gold Coast (Dr Joshua Whittaker)
- RMIT Media Star of the Year 2009 (Prof John Handmer)
- Top four finalist in the Early Career Scientist Award at the CRC
- Association Annual Conference, Alice Springs 2010; and first social scientist to be invited to present at a CRCA conference (Briony Towers)
Contact us
For further information, please email a member of the Centre for Risk and Community Safety team, or write to us at:
Centre for Risk and Community Safety
School of Mathematical & Geospatial Sciences
GPO Box 2476
Melbourne, VIC 3001
Australia
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