Update on the Regional Drought Resilience Planning program, a key program under the Australian Government’s $5 billion Future Drought Fund

Media release April 2022

RECoE: Our core research question: 

“How best can a strategic multidisciplinary approach to industry, community, and regional development deliver a thriving and internationally competitive rural economy?”

RECoE is a first-of-its-kind rural economic research collaboration comprised of four Queensland Universities: The University of Queensland, James Cook University, Central Queensland University & the University of Southern Queensland.

Established with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in 2018 for an initial 3 year period with combined funding of $3.6m, the centre divides its research portfolio into five themes: economic tools and analysis, regional innovation, value chain analysis, policy development; and translation & engagement.

Each of these themes have research projects based on topics and locations relevant to regional Queensland and have been designed to have impact beyond their case studies and regional locations.

Our latest research papers:

Moudassir Habib, Ben Lyons and Chad Renando, November 2024. Adoption challenges of environmental monitoring practices: case study of temperature data loggers in selected Australian vegetable supply chains. Applied Water Science, 14 (260). 

Phil Currey, Ben Lyons and Fynn De Daunton, May 2024. Family Farm Economic Diversification. Too Hard and Risky or an Opportunity Overlooked? The University of Southern Queensland. Toowoomba, Queensland.

Chad Renando & Charlie Simpson, 2023. 2023 "Australian Agritech Sector Report "Australian Agritech Association, Australia. 

Sally Driml, Richard Brown, Lintje Sie & Mr Spencer (Yumeng) Tong, April 2022. "Agriculture and Tourism - regional economic contributions and links: A case study of the wine and tourism industries in the Granite Belt region. Project Report" University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia. 

Saleena Ham & Geoffrey Woolcock, April 2022. ""Who do they think they are?”: social identity & conflict in small rural community" University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba Australia (pp. 1).

Chad Renando, July 2022. "Burnett Inland Futures Strategy" University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba Australia. 

Cristyn Meath, Belinda Wade, John Mangan, Anna Fueldner, Spencer Tong & Ben Lyons, May 2022. "Maximising the Value of the Energy Transition for Rural Communities" University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia.

Jennifer Yarnold, Greg Marston, Brendan Mackey, John McVeigh, John Rolfe, Allan Dale, Hurriyet Babacan, Ben Lyons, Felicity Deane, Maxine Newlands, Neville Plint, Lynette Molyneaux, Duncan Keenan-Jones, Jacob Birch, Rowena Maguire, John Quiggin, Don Butler, Catherine Lovelock, Natalie Doran-Browne & Graham Ashford, July 2022. "Decarbonising Queensland: Four pillars toward an inclusive and resilient low carbon economy" The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia. 

Ben Lyons & Fynn De Daunton, August 2022. "Recruitment and retention of a rural and regional workforce: a regional development perspective" University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba Australia (pp. 58). 

Amber Marshall, Hurriyet Babacan & Allan Dale, June 2021. "Leveraging digital development in regional and rural Queensland:Policy Discussion Paper" The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Cairns Australian (pp. 44). 

Akbar, D., Rolfe, J., Rahman, A., and Rajapaksa, D., 2020. Can cooperative business models coordinate horizontal and vertical supply chains? A case study in the Australian pineapple industry. School of Business and Law, CQUniversity Australia, Rockhampton (pp. 38).

Peggy Schrobback*, Steven Rust^, Sarah Ugalde^, and John Rolfe*, 2020. Describing and analysing the
Pacific oyster supply chain in Australia. *School of Business and Law, CQUniversity Australia, Rockhampton & University of Tasmania, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (pp.22).

Star, M., Rolfe, J., De Valck, J. and Rajapaksa, D., 2020. Consumer demands – seizing the opportunities in the beef industry. Report provided to the Rural Economies Centre of Excellence, School of Business and Law, CQUniversity Australia, Rockhampton (pp. 37).

Click on the map icons below to see our research publications and projects: