Emma Lancaster:

The Impact at UTS Podcast series is made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology Sydney, an audio production house funded by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research.

Please be aware, if you’re Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you should know that this episode contains names of deceased persons.

Martin Bliemel:

No matter what your field is, as a researcher, you’re in this game to make a difference. As the research is now being judged on its impact and the good it does in the world, we need to think about the ways in which we can work our work more impactful, and a journey to impact starts with engagement.

Julian Zipparo:

The most effective pathway to impact is through engagement and knowledge exchange.

Gamini Dissanayake:

We learn from them what they’re facing and they learn from us the kind of things we can do.

Michele Rumsey :

It’s about being agile and listening to our partners and being prepared to change something significant as you go along.

Craig Longman:

The most effective process is to take the research and put yourself in a position where you can actually put it into the game.

Claude Roux:

Engagement is absolutely pivotal. It’s not only asking ideas to the industry and just applying them, that’s it.It’s really working collaboratively with industry.

Thalia Anthony:

Have a very clear sense of what your values are that underlie your research and have those values manifest in the relationships you develop in your research.

Craig Longman:

If you’re going to work with a community, then you have to recognise their expertise as valid and legitimate. You listen to what they’re actually telling you and what they want.

Martin Bliemel:

You’re listening to Impact at UTS and I’m your host, Associate Professor Martin Bliemel. In today’s episode, we’re going to explore the concept of research engagement. Now, if you’ve just joined us, it might be better to head back and listen to episode one. It’ll make more sense that way. All caught up? Great. Let’s get started. As we learnt in our first episode…

Julian Zipparo:

Impact is the demonstrable benefit of your research on society. Engagement’s a pathway to getting to impact.

Martin Bliemel:

Today we’re going to find out how engagement is the roadmap to research impact. We’ll be hearing from two researchers at the top of the game who are carving out their own unique impact pathways. For both researchers, it’s started by engaging with those who are going to use their research.

Larissa Behrendt:

I’m Larissa Behrendt and I’m a Distinguished Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and I’m also the Director of Research and Academic Programs at the Jumbunna Institute.

Martin Bliemel:

Larissa was one of the joint winners of the UTS Research Impact Medal in 2019. Her research is recognised for the considerable impact it’s making outside the academic community. A lot of her success is down to how she and her team at Jumbunna engage with the communities they serve.

Larissa Behrendt:

We think really carefully about the fact that the community needs to own the research. So it’s not enough for us to say, “yes, we think our research will help Aboriginal communities because what we want to do will have benefit.” It’s a different fundamental starting point that says, “what does the community want and how can we help them get what they want?” and in the process of that, have them own the results and be building capacity within the community.

Martin Bliemel:

As well as hearing from Larissa, we’ll be talking to a marine biologist and core member of the Climate Change Cluster at UTS.

David Suggett:

I’m Associate Professor David Suggett and I lead the Future Reefs Program in the Climate Change Cluster.

Martin Bliemel:

David and his team have developed a unique collaboration between science and the tourism industry in Far North Queensland. They’ve found a small solution to a big problem that’s facing the world’s largest reef, the Great Barrier Reef. David’s been working closely with industry, government and community and it’s been having a huge impact.

David Suggett:

It’s a problem that’s galvanizsed a really big partnership and community. It hasn’t actually changed the kind of science we do. It’s just that we’ve reframed the questions to that of the end user, rather than me as a scientist sitting in my ivory tower thinking, “what would be a really interesting question to ask?” just reorientating the perspective.

Martin Bliemel:

We’ll be hearing more from David and Larissa shortly. But first, I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page. A critical starting point for your research impact journey is thinking about what research engagement looks like in your discipline’s field. I’ll push back on whether you have to stay within your discipline, but that’s for another episode. How you approach it and what you do will vary based on your research project, the solution or benefit you’re seeking and the networks or partnerships you want to build. Research engagement is typically defined as a set of activities through which knowledge is exchanged with non-academics for mutual benefit. Julian Zipparo, a familiar voice you’ll remember from episode one, is the Executive Manager for Research Engagement at the UTS Research Office. And with a title like that, he’s just the person to explain exactly what research engagement is.

Julian Zipparo:

Engagement is essentially communicating research with people outside of the academy. An important aspect of engagement is actually mutual benefit, so it’s not a one-way interchange. It’s actually something that’s beneficial to both parties or multiple parties. That’s the shift. Where we’ve previously disseminated our work to audiences, we’re now seeking to get to an understanding of “how does our research get adopted?” And what we realise is, most of the time that’s about engagement processes, making sure that audiences understand what it is you’re doing and what the potential benefits of it are.

Julian Zipparo:

And so what we’ve found is, when you bring researchers to the table with potential end users who are interested in their research from the very beginning, the quality of the conversation improves over time, takes time to build, kind of like when you meet someone for the first time, you feel each other out for a little while. So engaging with potential end users of your research from the very beginning is sometimes a little bit awkward and foreign to researchers, but I think what we’re learning is that by doing that and by building relationships up over time, there’s so many different benefits to that. Your research can go in new and interesting directions. And, at the end of the day, you’ve probably developed a relationship which means you have an advocate for your research who then helps with uptake and that impact.

Martin Bliemel:

If research engagement is typically defined as exchanging knowledge with people outside academia, how do you define the term knowledge exchange?

Julian Zipparo:

So knowledge exchange is an important concept and change for universities because what it’s saying is, it’s not a one-way street. You don’t create knowledge and then disseminate it onto audiences. It’s actually an interactive process. What we’ve learnt is university researchers can benefit just as much from engaging with external audiences as those audiences can benefit themselves. And so it’s a mutual exchange. It’s an interactive exchange that’s beneficial for both parties.

Martin Bliemel:

But how is engagement or knowledge exchange different to research impact?

Julian Zipparo:

The way it differs from impact is, again, knowledge exchange is a pathway to impact. Even though it’s difficult to control outcomes and the way that your research is going to be used, one way that you can indirectly have an influence is through knowledge exchange and engagement. It does change the way that universities need to conceive of their relationship with society and what we do to benefit them.

Martin Bliemel:

In the past, our traditional models of research look more like, “hey, here are my research results. You should use them. Good luck!” and this was more of a one-way mode of communicating. But as our understandings have evolved, we’ve moved more and more to the idea of knowledge exchange and this mode of operating acknowledges the two-way flow of knowledge that occurs between researchers and their end users and the value this exchange can provide. So how do you define end users?

Julian Zipparo:

End users are essentially people outside of the academy. Traditionally, our research has been aimed at other scholars. An end user of research is pretty much everyone except for another academic. Often we look to end users of research as a funding source and I think it’s important that we don’t approach it in that way. End users contribute more than just potential funding to research projects. They contribute different perspectives. That’s really beneficial because you’ve got different ways of thinking applied to problems and it gets you innovative in different solutions.

Martin Bliemel:

So by engaging with end users from the outset of your research journey, you have the opportunity to learn about the research problem that interests you from other perspectives. These insights can take your research in interesting directions you might never have expected. The end users you engage with can also become advocates for your research. Down the line, this is greatly going to increase the chance that your research will be adopted and taken up, not to mention the possibility of future work and potential funding.

Martin Bliemel:

Now let’s hear from one researcher who has engagement at the very heart of her research agenda and knows what it means to do research with a community. Larissa Behrendt is a Professor of Law and Director of Research at Jumbunna. She sat down with Impact Studio’s producer and journalist, Cassandra Steeth, to explain her award winning approach.

Cassandra Steeth:

Thanks for joining me, Larissa. At Jumbunna, you undertake research using a framework of self-determination and you conduct your work relating to matters of importance to Indigenous people, their families and their communities. What would you say is at the core of Jumbunna’s work?

Larissa Behrendt:

I would say that one of the guiding principles we have is of self-determination. I think that comes through in a range of ways. We see the support of Aboriginal students in their graduation and in their ability to contribute back to their communities on the issues that they want to contribute on as a part of self-determination in action. So in that sense, we see our role as actually developing Aboriginal people to be agents of change.

Larissa Behrendt:

Then within a research context, we take that seriously by asking what research the community needs, what we can do to support that. And in how we structure research programs or agendas, we think really carefully about the capacity building of that, the fact that the community needs to own the research. So it’s not enough for us to say, “we think our research will help Aboriginal communities because what we want to do will have benefit.” It’s a different fundamental starting point that says, “what does the community want and how can we help them get what they want?” and in the process of that, have them own the results and be building capacity within the community.

Cassandra Steeth:

Larissa, from your perspective as somebody who heads up this organisation within UTS, why is self-determination so important for Indigenous Australians?

Larissa Behrendt:

So there’s sort of a philosophy around this idea that Indigenous people should be able to be the ones that are driving what’s happening to them and be really centrally involved in the decision-making around what their priorities are, how those priorities should be met, who should be doing that work. So in that sense, it’s a philosophical position, but it’s also really a practical one because we can tell by the research that the more Aboriginal people are centrally involved in those things, in the creation of programs, and the development of policy, and the delivery of services, that there are actually better results.

Cassandra Steeth:

Does Jumbunna have a specific approach to research impact?

Larissa Behrendt:

I guess by having that self-determination framework upfront and asking, “what does the community need and how can we build capacity at that time?” we’re almost starting with impact before we have a research question. That, for us, has been why the new focus on impact has been a really good thing because we feel like our work’s been really strong on that. Whereas, I think people who are approaching this new focus on impact by looking at their work and then trying to work out what the impact is, is almost putting the cart before the horse.

Larissa Behrendt:

From our perspective at Jumbunna, we would work in looking at: what is the change that we can make and where can our work be effective? And then looking to see how we approach it from there. Are there grants that can assist that? Is there some other strategy that can assist that? Is there some other way that we can approach doing this work? I feel like what is a benefit about this is that it might encourage more researchers to think before they even start a research project to be asking, “what will be the impact of my work?”

Cassandra Steeth:

And so is that how you plan your research, in that you start with a problem and you work your way backwards?

Larissa Behrendt:

Well, that’s right. I think that that’s a really important place to start, is to think about, “what is going to make the big difference?” and work from there. It’s not enough to say, “well, I’m very interested in the ideas of, say governance in an Aboriginal community, so I can help this community over here and then I can tell a story of how my work’s helped them.” If we’re talking really honestly about Indigenous-led research, it’s got to be led by Indigenous communities. We have to be answering the wicked problems that they have, not the problems that might intellectually interest us.

Cassandra Steeth:

Larissa, can you tell me about why you won the UTS Medal for Research Impact in 2019?

Larissa Behrendt:

Oh, I’m so bad at talking about myself. Well, I would see being awarded the Medal for Impact Research by UTS as a great honor, but I think it does also reflect the work of the team more holistically. We do work collaboratively. A large part of that was around the work that we had done in relation to the Bowraville community and assisting that community in having space to voice their concerns about the unsolved murder of three of their children over 20 years ago. A horrendous miscarriage of justice.

NEWS GRAB Journalist Juanita Phillips on ‘Unsolved Bowraville murders to be reconsidered’ ABC News:

 

The children were murdered within a five month period in the Mid North Coast town of Bowraville.

NEWS GRAB  Journalist Tara Callinan on ‘Failed By The System: The Bowraville Children’s Murders’ NITV News:

 

Despite two court cases and a coronial inquest, no one has ever been convicted.

NEWS GRAB: Gavin Stanbrook (Colleen Walker-Craig’s cousin) in ‘NSW Police offer million-dollar reward for new information on Bowraville murders’ ABC News:

 

We’re outraged. We’re absolutely disgusted. So it’s deeply distressing and deeply upsetting that we have to deal with another kick in the guts from the state.

NEWS GRAB: NITV News – Helen Duroux (Clinton Speedy-Duroux’s aunty) in ‘Failed By The System: The Bowraville Children’s Murders’ NITV News:

 

But it’s not only going to change for our families concerned, it’s going to have far reaching changes and make changes for the whole of Australia and the Aboriginal community.

Larissa Behrendt:

Well, I was still in law school when the Bowraville cases happened and it was very much something that had a psychological impact on me. I wasn’t involved in the case until about 2011 when the community approached us because how we work at Jumbunna, we don’t instill ourselves or insert ourselves into something. We wait until we’re asked. When we were asked, and we spoke with the families, I knew what they wanted to do. We could see that there were things that we could do to help them. But I felt like I had been sitting with that case since it had happened.

Cassandra Steeth:

Between September 1990 and February 1991, three Indigenous children were murdered in the New South Wales town of Bowraville. For 30 years, the victims’ families have sought justice denied to them due to a lack of political will, systemic racism and complexities around double jeopardy laws. For the last 10 years, Jumbunna has worked with the families to provide legal advice to community members and the New South Wales Police Force, as well as submissions and education to police, parliamentarians and policy makers. Jumbunna produced a documentary film on the murders and recently developed a model amending double jeopardy laws to allow historical cases to be retried where systemic racism has hampered the investigation. Larissa, for those who may not know, can you explain to me what happened in Bowraville and why it’s of such significance to Jumbunna?

Larissa Behrendt:

So in 1990, 1991, over a period of around six months, three Aboriginal children went missing from the Bowraville Mission. Two of their bodies were found. One has never been found. So Clinton, Evelyn and Colleen were all taken in circumstances where there was one particular suspect that the police had identified. But due to a series of errors in the police investigation that were particularly created because there was such a bad relationship historically, really, between police and Aboriginal communities, those murders were never solved. The evidence wasn’t collected properly. And so it has been incredibly difficult to bring justice to the families.

Larissa Behrendt:

So to give you an example of the sorts of things we mean when we say there was a bad relationship, when the children first went missing, and even though Evelyn was only a toddler, the police had not taken the claim seriously and had mentioned that this might have just been the kids going walkabout as opposed to really responding to the concerns of families who knew that their children would not have gone off without telling them. Another way was that because there had been such a poor historical relationship where the police had to give permission for people to move on and off the Mission and to work and et cetera. So there wasn’t a great deal of trust in terms of police being able to really work with witnesses to get statements out of them. How we know that that evidence was there was that the police did reinvestigate it many years later and that evidence was sitting there. So there was a failure, really, in that sense.

Cassandra Steeth:

Now, challenging the systemic racism that exists in the Australian legal system is a huge, complex task. When Jumbunna first started looking into the Bowraville murders, did you have a specific tangible goal in mind?

Larissa Behrendt:

When we first were approached by the families, we didn’t have a goal. Our very first step was myself and a couple of members of the team went up for a very small meeting with representatives from each of the families and we talked through where they were and what they wanted. Then we had a think about, off the back of that, what we could assist them with doing. Lobbying for a parliamentary inquiry was one of those things. Seeking to get an attorney general to take up the case was another. The documentary was a third, and then working with the current inquiry and the police in relation to progressing the case. We worked with the police at that time and assisted with their submission to some of those inquiries. So we formed quite a strong relationship with the police around these changes, which we did with the families. So there was a range of ways in which we thought we could assist, but that came directly from speaking with the families about what they wanted to do and then us thinking about what skillset we could bring to that.

Larissa Behrendt:

Why it’s such an important case and a significant case for Aboriginal people is that particularly with its timing, 1990, 1991, was when the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody was taking place. One of the things that was really apparent in that is that it spoke to the lived experience of many Aboriginal people where they were over-policed, where they were being locked up for things like swearing at the police, being drunken in the street, those sort of summary offenses that led to an incredible over-representation within the criminal justice system. There were a large raft of recommendations that went to saying that those sorts of summary offenses shouldn’t be policed in the way that they were. You also had a situation where Aboriginal people would get much harsher sentences than their white counterparts in relation to how they were treated within the court. So you had a system that was structurally racially discriminatory against Aboriginal people when they were perceived as behaving in a criminal way. Then here you have a situation where three Aboriginal children go missing and the police are not vigilant in how they investigate that.

Cassandra Steeth:

It’s my understanding when it comes to the Bowraville case, Jumbunna has been central to fostering Indigenous empowerment and self-determination through deep engagement and partnership with the community for over a decade now. In doing so, Jumbunna has supported the families of the murdered children to tell their stories in a unique way that challenges a typical law and order narrative and calls out systemic racism. It’s this approach that’s helped lawmakers to understand the issue from the family’s perspectives and help reshape the way lawmakers interact with Indigenous people. These are really profound things you’ve done for and with the Bowraville community. What kind of shift has this created?

Larissa Behrendt:

I don’t think this was a case that was on people’s radar outside of the Aboriginal community. You could look back a series of very high profile cases where white children went missing and they’d really stayed in people’s consciousness. There was a sense, I think quite rightly, within the Bowraville community, that people didn’t care, the wider community didn’t care that these children had gone missing. They had to really beg for every tiny bit of coverage that they’ve gotten. I think that has significantly shifted now, that there’s been a range of ways in which their story has now been heard and they’ve been able to put it out there. I think it’s got a profile now. That’s not a sense of justice for them, but at least people are aware of it and there can be a shared sense of sorrow, grief and commiseration and anger that these cases haven’t been solved. That has been one big shift we’ve seen on the way.

Larissa Behrendt:

By the time that we became involved in 2011, there’d been almost over 20 years of these families and this community working to get justice. So, in a way, their motivation and determination was something that I think we just needed to create space and a platform for. It wasn’t about us coming in and saving them. It was about us being able to come in and assist them the most. I mean, one thing I’ve really learnt along the way was, as lawyers, we’re really good at coming in, and when somebody is disenfranchised or disempowered and they’re trying to navigate a legal system, you speak for them and you advocate for them. That’s what you do. You’re kind of a translator and you work to get the right outcome. One thing I learnt by working with the Bowraville community was that there are some times when, as an advocate, the most important thing you can do is to create space so their voices can be heard. I think we learnt this in the process we went through in doing the first documentary about them.

Cassandra Steeth:

This was the documentary, Innocence Betrayed, that you directed and released in 2014.

Larissa Behrendt:

Yes, that first time that we were able to create that space for them to tell their story in their own words. That became the thing that people responded to, it was their passion. We can make lots of eloquent arguments about what went wrong with the police investigation, what went wrong with the court system, what’s gone wrong with non-Indigenous judgment making around this case, but I guess there’s nothing that will get the hearts and minds as much as a parent talking about what it feels like to lose a child in those circumstances and to not have justice for it. I feel like giving them the space to tell that story was a significant shift.

Larissa Behrendt:

We obviously worked with them to get a parliamentary inquiry, which everyone said would never happen, but it did. That became a very significant moment too, for focus and a reform agenda that the families have wanted. We also managed to progress the case. So the changes to the law have been still against us in relation to that. The legislation, although it was implemented in a way to support the Bowraville families, it hasn’t been interpreted that way. So there is still a legal hurdle for them. But they have made significant inroads.

Larissa Behrendt:

So I sort of feel like, in a way, they were sitting there waiting to find this pathway and we’ve just helped them down that. That’s not an insignificant thing. I look back and I feel like it’s perhaps one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my whole career. It’s not even so much what we’ve achieved alongside the families, but I think it’s more working with them so closely and becoming part of those families. There’ve been moments where it’s been families only and they say, “Oh no, that includes you.” I feel very touched by that and I feel, in a way, it’s the highest kind of reward you can get for any kind of research you do.

Larissa Behrendt:

I don’t think anyone at Jumbunna would be there if we didn’t feel like we were making a difference. I think all of us have been drawn to our professions to make a difference. I became a lawyer because I wanted to change the world. I was actually drawn into academia because I felt that being a cog in the legal system when I worked at Legal Aid wasn’t achieving that. I became much more interested in the concept of law reform. I think what I’ve learnt over the last 10 years, particularly working with the Bowraville families, it’s helped me to realise, actually, that we can play a role if we’re still willing to listen to what the community wants. I would always emphasise there is something about UTS that’s very unique in being very honest about saying it values social justice. And its proof is that it has continued to unquestioningly support our work.

Larissa Behrendt:

It’s trite to say it, but I really get so much strength from the communities. I pick up the phone and talk to one of our Bowraville community members about what their kids are doing or something, and I feel a part of the community. I see how they’re living their lives and we’ve been a part of that. There is a sense that makes you feel like you’re grounded and you belong and people respect you and there’s a space where you can be where people appreciate who you are and value what you’ve done. All of that helps, but their resilience is remarkable to me.

Martin Bliemel:

Hearing Larissa’s distinct approach to research engagement and the impact her work has achieved outside academia is truly inspiring. I’ve got to say though, for some researchers it’s quite liberating to let go of the research question and embrace the messiness of wicked problems, but not so much for others, who we might call traditional researchers. All researchers are trained, in part, by reading neatly written articles that present the research question and then offer and answer to it. So we become primed to assume that’s how we should design research and do research, efficiently and logically. But that’s at odds with the wickedness or messiness of impactful curiosity driven research that might require significant investment in understanding the context or the system. Only looking for the needle in the haystack, say, blindfolded with a metal detector, then you risk missing out on discovering the rest of the barn or critically questioning the research method you’re using.

Martin Bliemel:

Now, as researchers, we often have to take on the task of actively seeking and building relationships and engagement activities. So when’s the right time to engage with external research partners? For some forms of research, engagement occurs after the research contribution has been crystallised into something that can be shopped around, for instance, patents require the IP, or the intellectual property, to be held close and not disclosed for it to be protectable. However, even with patentable research, the researchers can engage with the potential end users to better understand the scope or the scale of the problem that the IP could solve without giving away the secret sauce that gets written in to the patent. We’re about to hear one example where the development of a piece of technology may never have occurred without the input of industry or end users. It just so happens this exchange took place in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

David Suggett:

We think about vibrant corals. We think about Nemo. All of these facets drive a really deep connection to the reef as being a sort of iconic Australian identity.

Martin Bliemel:

This is David Suggett. He is an Associate Professor in the Climate Change Cluster at UTS. A lot of us will know, back in 2016, a mass coral bleaching event wiped out 30% of the Great Barrier Reef. Since then, David and his colleague, Dr. Emma Camp, have been working with the reef tourism operators to rehabilitate and future-proof the reef.

David Suggett:

We were there at sort of ground zero, if you like, during the bleaching event that first kick-started all of this. You literally see the tissue disintegrate from the coral in front of your eyes because the heating is just so extreme.

Martin Bliemel:

David spoke with Impact Studio’s producer and journalist, Cassandra Steeth, to discuss how his approach to research engagement and the uncanny combination of science and tourism led to a tiny device that helped restore the reef.

David Suggett:

We created a novel device a couple of years ago called Coralclip. So what Coralclip does is takes advantage of this fragmentation phase, where if a coral has broken off, whether that’s naturally or unnaturally, we can reattach it to the reef really quickly. Now, the cool part of this product is that until we came up with it, it was actually illegal for anyone to pick up coral and replant it on the reef, which is just nuts because you think all those natural fragments that litter the reef, it really is like leaf litter, in a sense, sometimes, all of that would otherwise die. So having the opportunity to replant it on the reef at a time when we’re losing coral biomass is an absolute game changer.

Cassandra Steeth:

And you had to change some laws to do this.

David Suggett:

Yeah. So we worked really closely with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It took a lot of work to get to the point they were happy for this to occur. But it really involved developing new policy that enabled operators and practitioners up on the reef to be able to just pick up coral. What’s really interesting is that in the past they’d been allowed to remove coral eating pests, the crown-of-thorns starfish is a great example, but they’ve never been able to actually replant coral and enable a more active approach to rebuild the reef.

Cassandra Steeth:

So Coralclip itself, it’s a stainless steel device, is that right, that sort of clips onto the reef and it fuses to it?

David Suggett:

Yeah. In some ways, when you look at it, it’s perhaps a little bit underwhelming, but it really is a small clip with basically a torsion spring on it. It takes about seven seconds to hammer it into the reef.

Cassandra Steeth:

What do you hammer it with?

David Suggett:

Just a hammer.

Cassandra Steeth:

An underwater hammer.

David Suggett:

There’s been a few thumbs go awry during this process, I can tell you. Then the spring basically creates this lock of the clip onto the reef. Then you insert the fragment into the clip. Then the coral re-glues itself naturally over the next couple of months. Then over that time, after about six or seven months, the clip starts to basically erode away or is integrated back into the reef. The novel solution of implementing Coralclip was actually working with the tourism industry because they’re on the reef every day and they can go out and basically hoover up all the fragments and clip them back on.

David Suggett:

Most often now many of the tourism operators will just swim around with Coralclips in their diving buoyancy gear, with a hammer, and if they see something, they’ll just pick it up and hammer away. And so it’s incredible because it’s sort of changed the way in which the operators now interact with the reef in many ways.

Cassandra Steeth:

How many years has this been running for?

David Suggett:

Believe it or not, it’s only been two years. Because the impact it’s had has been so unique and transformative, it’s had huge uptake. Part of that reflects just the hunger and the motivation of the industry to have new tools. It’s this empowerment that’s been so important, giving operators an opportunity to also adapt. We have means where we think we know how the reefs can be best managed to adapt, but it’s not just the reefs that need that support, it’s, of course, the industries. And so having that combined social, ecological approach is really central to finding a solution that works for both the reef and the associated stakeholders.

Cassandra Steeth:

How stoked were some of these operators? I can only imagine that they were over the moon.

David Suggett:

Yeah. Do you know what? We’ve been really blessed, actually, with the groups we’ve worked with. I think we have to blow our own trumpet a little bit here to some extent, is that in the past in Australia, there’s not been a great relationship between research and the tourism industry on the reef. In the past, research has treated tourism very much as a passive player in the process. One of our sort of transformative philosophies, it was to say, “You know what? This is actually a two-way relationship,” because tour operators, they work at the sites every day, they’ve got unique site knowledge. They can transform science as much as science can transform their capacity to operate.

David Suggett:

So it’s changing that status quo that has really brought trust between the research-tourism partnership. That trust, I think, is really galvanised just through the sorts of individuals involved in the program now. It’s been so rewarding, honestly. It’s the piece of research I’m probably most proud of because of that direct sort of human connection.

Cassandra Steeth:

So how does it work? Because, obviously, industry’s taking tourists out onto the reef, but they’ve also got a bunch of Coralclips in their wetsuit. What are they telling tourists? Are they saying, “Hold on a minute. I’m just going to go and tap over here?” Or are they teaching them? How does it work?

David Suggett:

Yeah. That’s the beauty of the program. It’s given us a sort of conduit direct to the million tourists that come to the reef every year. They are so excited that the operators are not just passively taking them out and talking about the impacts on the reef and showing them some of the areas that still look good. They are showing them the coal nurseries that we have. Because, it’s not just about fragments. We’ve actually installed over 50 coral nurseries now. Because Coralclip’s been so successful, we’ve run out of fragments. So we now have to grow coral to make sure there’s enough to keep boosting the biomass back onto the reef.

David Suggett:

So the nurseries are a huge draw for tourism because it’s an active part of how they’re engaging with recovery and they see that the money they’re spending into the operator is going back directly into something good. It’s not just this kind of adopt a coral model saying, “Hey, give us some cash and we’ll save your corals.” It really is that the operators are putting in the hard work to rebuild the reef with some additional financing.

Cassandra Steeth:

So who pays for the Coralclip then? How does it work?

David Suggett:

That is a good question. If anyone’s listening and wants to pay for the Coralclip, we’d be very pleased. No. So we’re at the point now where the government grants we’ve had have funded purchasing basically about a million clips. But we’re now at the point where we’re running out. And so the next phase of the program is really aligning with economists to develop sustainable financing streams. It’s really critical that the operators, to be resilient, have the means, of course, to self-finance the operation. This means being creative with financing but in a way that’s transparent to the funders.

David Suggett:

As I said, we don’t want to go down this adopt a coral pathway. We want to be able to empower the operators again. So the analogy one of the operators always gives to me is, “Think about if you’re going to feed someone, they don’t want to be given fish, they want to be given a fishing rod.” So they really want to be empowered to have the equipment, the tools, the practice. And so developing the financing streams that can do that are critical.

Cassandra Steeth:

Totally, and it’s really exciting, impactful work, which I’m sure as a researcher, it’s what gets you going.

David Suggett:

Honestly, it’s changed the way I really think about research. The story that has really embedded that for me is actually, I know we’re all tired of talking about COVID-19, but I have to tell a quick COVID-19 story. So when the lockdown started, of course the first thing that happened in Queensland was tourism dried up. So the operators were completely mothballed. Now, through JobKeeper, many of the tour operator staff were paid, but they had no money to actually go to the reef.

David Suggett:

So we managed to find some money and used that to pay for the vessels to go out for the operators trained through the Coral Nurture Program to repurpose from being tour operators to go out and start replanting the reef en masse. So we can actually, during a time when it’s pretty depressing through COVID-19, we can start to look for some positivity in terms of how we can re-mobilise people’s efforts. That was a real success story for us: how can we repurpose the tourism industry during tourism downturns? We’ve now planted over 20,000 corals at some of these sites.

Cassandra Steeth:

It’s great to hear such a positive research story during this time. But even despite this being a really innovative solution, it doesn’t fix the fact that the coral reef doesn’t like warm, acidic, deoxygenated water, which, of course, is the environment that climate change is creating for it. So whilst there’s hope, there’s clearly a broader problem that you still need to solve.

David Suggett:

That’s right. I think we’re very clear to make sure we’re not pulling the wool over people’s eyes that this is going to save the reef. It certainly isn’t. But what it’s going to enable is for the reef to have some sense of withstanding climate change but simultaneously, for the stakeholders to adapt at the same time and remain resilient and for our economy to stay in the shape that it needs to be.

Cassandra Steeth:

David, you have a whole list of partners and end users.

Cassandra Steeth:

Who they are?

David Suggett:

This could take a while.

Cassandra Steeth:

The key ones, maybe.

David Suggett:

So our main academic partners, we work with James Cook University up in Queensland. We work with the University of Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Traditional Owners. Then in terms of our operator partners, to give you a sort of long tourism list, we work with Wavelength are our primary partners. Actually, the owner of Wavelength was really the one that conceived the idea for Coralclip. Then we work with Quicksilver, Sailaway, The Passions of Paradise and Ocean Freedom, and these operate, as I said, are sort of really diverse business models on the reef. Some are just sail powered boats, some are huge juggernaut catamarans that take hundreds of tourists out the reef. But then also we work with NGOs, as I said, like Nature Conservancy and Reef Ecologic, which is a consultancy, a really broad spectrum of skillsets that come into solving this problem.

David Suggett:

What’s really interesting is that it’s a problem that’s galvanized a really big partnership and community. It hasn’t actually changed the kind of science we do. It’s just that we’ve reframed the questions to that of the end user, or the stakeholder, or the partner, rather than me as a scientist sitting in my ivory tower thinking, “What would be a really interesting question to ask?” has actually been just reorientating the perspective.

Cassandra Steeth:

Interesting. It sounds as though Wavelength, which is a commercial-

David Suggett:

Correct, yeah.

Cassandra Steeth:

… operator that takes tourists out to the reef, it was their idea, Coralclip?

David Suggett:

Yeah, absolutely. This is how all of this started, through our research relationship with Wavelength because, so the story is, so we had a grant from National Geographic to go and explore some new reef sites and we were struggling to find a contractor, and Wavelength reached out for us saying, “We heard on the street that you’re looking for a vessel. We’re really interested in doing something a bit more sustainable to the reef. We can give you access to the vessel for a good price.” We went out on this expedition. We realised really, really quickly we were very connected, I think, as individuals in terms of looking at the problem-solution space in terms of stakeholders on the reef and rebuilding degraded reefs. So it was that connection between individuals that really catalysed then how this grew into this big regional program.

Cassandra Steeth:

As a researcher, I’m sure that’s not something that you really plan for.

David Suggett:

No, exactly, and I have to say, obviously, different academics have different ways they approach perspectives and society. And for me, because I’ve worked in a lot of locations where you talk to the communities, you have to because you’re working in their space, it’s those connections with people that make a big difference in terms of not only how you frame your connections but actually what then motivates you and drives your passion to solve those problems. I think one of the key aspects of impact is probably for academics to learn how to connect to the sorts of communities where the problems are. If you want to learn something about where you are in the history, you’re going to want to talk to these people. I can’t imagine not doing that.

Cassandra Steeth:

Yeah, exactly. How important is engagement in your work, David? Could your research be as successful without it?

David Suggett:

Definitely not. I think engagement, and you can obviously define that in lots of ways, I think you can engage in terms of having conversations, but it’s also in terms of those conversations, how they stem, often they’re quite transparent in terms of how you view the person you’re having the conversation with. If you don’t really respect them and respect their perspective, it’s very difficult to have an honest and trustful conversation that you need then to start uncovering where your areas of impact are. As I said, this is where our relationship with tourism has been really important because I just talk to the tourism operators as though they’re my gym buddies, as I would anyone else. It really is about just having an honest conversation and not being afraid to view the problem through different eyes, not just your own.

Cassandra Steeth:

Is that a way in which you’re able to essentially best provide that two-way exchange of information? Because it’s that exchange and maximizing that which enhances the engagement-

David Suggett:

Absolutely.

Cassandra Steeth:

… with your research, right?

David Suggett:

Absolutely. I think I’ve definitely buried my ego in the last 10 years or so. Well, maybe others wouldn’t think that but I like to think I have. But I’ve definitely transitioned from a talker to a listener. I think that’s also been very important. Academics know a lot, or they like to think they know a lot, about their specific subjects, but I can guarantee there’s other people out there that know way more. Quite often, where that comes from will surprise you.

David Suggett:

For me, in terms of engagement, it’s really been about making more time for the people I work with. It’s also being prepared to invest time in having those conversations. Again, we’re all time restricted, but you can’t put a price on maintaining the relationship and trust with your partners and stakeholders. They might want to phone you up and just vent for 10 minutes about an issue and it might not be relevant to the research you’re doing, but it’s part of maintaining that partnership and the sort of bipartisan flow of information between the two partners or multiple partners in a network that really builds the impact.

Cassandra Steeth:

Do you have any tips on developing industry and community connections in your research, David? Because you have so many different partners and end users. What’s been your approach and what do you think has made it successful?

David Suggett:

I think, for me, and again, I don’t know how easy this is for others, but I’ve really fought hard to retain my footprint and activity out in the field. As you tend to sort of grow and establish as an academic or a career academic, you do tend to sort of spend less time in the lab or the field and more time in the office. I think more time is well spent and well invested by really immersing yourself on the frontline. Then you really get under the hood of where some of the broader issues are that can translate the impact.

David Suggett:

So I’ve had to fight quite hard, but I’ve had great support from everyone around me, my line managers, faculty, to be able to do that and continue to do that because they see the value and the impact returned. Again, it’s a sacrifice you have to make. You have to realize that going in the field or the lab is a big time drain against other activities. But I can guarantee, it’s worth it if you put yourself in the position where you’re actually having conversations and working with partners.

Cassandra Steeth:

What’s your hope for Coralclip?

David Suggett:

We’re looking to roll out Coral Nurture Program, which is really built around Coralclip, to the broader Great Barrier Reef community. We have actually trialed the product in the Caribbean as well, where there’s big reef restoration activity, but also in some of the Pacific Island states. So we really want this to be a global enterprise. It’s not so much about Coralclip per se, but it’s more about rolling out the model of the research-tourism partnership. How can we mobilise in other countries or regions the fact that there’s such immense people power and drive to rebuild reefs or at least play a part in rebuilding reefs? Being able to empower that through successful partnerships is actually really critical.

David Suggett:

That’s going to mean that we need to start transitioning much more to not just the science we do but thinking about the economics and the social angles that comes with it. It’s looking at both the bottom up and top down approach to roll out this at a bigger scale. We’re not just coral reef biologists or ecologists, we’re rapidly turning into sociologists, I think, in some senses. So it’s part of our evolution as academics and it’s there to be taken hold of. I’m hoping more academics will be able to jump into that opportunity, get out into the community and learn, really, where the real problems are.

Martin Bliemel:

That was Associate Professor, David Suggett, in conversation with Cassandra Steeth, talking about how the road to research impact is through engagement and knowledge exchange. It seems to me like the Future Reefs Program played an important role in developing a toolbox of solutions that can be used not only in the Great Barrier Reef but, if David and his team have their way, on coral reefs around the globe.

Martin Bliemel:

I hope you’ve found listening to both Larissa and David’s research stories just as fascinating as I have and that these discussions have given you some insights and ideas on how you might approach engagement in your field. You might have picked up that they also both did research in teams. That’s critical. It’s hard to be the lone, multi-tool, all-rounder Jack or Jill of all trades. It’s important to play to your strengths and build a research team where everyone has a role. But those team members don’t have to be academics. They can be non-academics too. You need to stop assuming that research is done by these lone heroes, especially when it comes to impact and engagement.

Martin Bliemel:

Delivering excellent research with impact through engagement can provide both profound professional and personal rewards simply by seeking to listen and work with those who want, need, end user research. Engagement is, after all, a two-way process that ideally happens through knowledge exchange with community partners, rather than knowledge transferred to community partners. It’s not a single process or a set of activities. I guess, instead, it’s more like an ongoing process or conversation that builds trust and relationships and takes time.

Martin Bliemel:

Thank you so much for joining me on the second episode of Impact at UTS. If you’re interested to learn more about research impact and engagement, head over to the UTS RES Hub website. That’s reshub.uts.edu.au. Here you will find the newly created research impact module where you can learn more, find tools and explore research impact in relation to your own work. One of those tools is the Symplectic Records of Impact. By using Symplectic, you can record your own engagement pathway and activities which will assist you down the track when you’re putting together your own impact story or even promotion application or grant application.

Martin Bliemel:

Next time on Impact at UTS, we’ll hear from three distinguished STEM professors on how they’ve worked with industry partners to create successful research collaborations. I’m your host, Associate Professor Dr. Martin Bliemel. You’ve been listening to Impact at UTS.

Speaker 1:

At Impact Studios, we work with the best scholars to embed audio in the research process, making one of a kind podcasts that entertain, inspire and create change. To get in touch, you can email impactstudios@uts.edu.au. The production team live on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora nation, whose lands were never ceded.