Queensland communities impacted by natural hazards will benefit from the strong relationship being forged between Natural Hazards Research Australia (the Centre), the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA) and the University of Queensland (UQ).
Evaluating the Resilient Homes Fund, a project led by the Centre is driving collaborative program and policy evaluation in disaster resilience by assessing the three Resilient Homes Fund program options – Resilient Retrofit, Home Raising and Voluntary Home Buy-Back.
The Resilient Homes Fund was established in May 2022 following devastating rainfall and flooding events that impacted southern Queensland. Registrations for the program closed in July 2023. The program is a jointly funded initiative delivered through Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).
The Centre’s evaluation project aims to demonstrate the success factors and lessons learnt as they apply to the four resilience dimensions (physical, financial, social and emotional).
Research leader Prof Paula Jarzabkowski emphasises the importance of the evaluation.
"Evaluating programs like the Resilient Homes Fund is critical to ensure that we build the knowledge and capability to upgrade existing housing stock and make Australian people and communities more resilient to disasters,” Paula said.
“Developing this knowledge relies on high-quality data and good trust between organisations, which has been demonstrated by QRA and UQ as partners in this study.”
QRA CEO Major General Jake Ellwood (Retd) said the collaborative nature of the evaluation was reflective of the program, which had involved three levels of government working together to help flood-impacted Queenslanders.
“The Resilient Homes Fund is the first household resilience program of its kind to be offered in Australia and is changing the lives of Queenslanders, as well as the region’s resilience to flooding.”
Through the establishment of strong, mutually supportive relationships, the project team was able to embed researchers within QRA and the Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works, facilitating a unique and in-depth understanding of the Resilient Homes Fund’s successes, challenges and lessons able to be learned.
Embedded Centre researchers, Dr Tyler Riordan and Dr Katie Meissner from UQ, engaged with Resilient Homes Fund program managers and staff and have attended community and industry-focused resilience expos to gain a detailed, holistic view of the program and the people it supports.
This collaborative model enabled the co-design of key elements of the research process to ensure the project’s findings and outcomes are academically rigorous and practically applicable.
This form of partnership highlights the way and benefit of academia and government working together to develop, implement and evaluate policy that builds resilient communities and creates lasting, meaningful change.
The Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works is managing the delivery of the retrofit and house raising program components of the Resilient Homes Fund, while the Queensland Reconstruction Authority is managing the buy-back program together with local government.
Learn more about the project here.