Why this Cluster exists 

The Sustainability Research Cluster was established in 2007 (originally the Sustainability Research Centre) with the goal of conducting cutting-edge research into pressing local, regional, and global challenges of economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Our collaborative, transdisciplinary approach focuses on understanding the relationships between people, place, and change. We aim to provide evidence-based solutions to policy, planning, and decision-making for a socially just and thriving world.

Our work

Our work focusses on climate action, sustainable communities and social-environmental justice. Exploring solutions to address global challenges in these areas and drawing on a diverse range of expertise across transdisciplinary research. Key projects of the Sustainability Research Cluster are grouped below:

Climate action projects

Traditions of Artificial-Island Construction in the Western Pacific
Hundreds of years before contact with the world beyond the Pacific Ocean, the peoples of western Pacific Island groups constructed artificial islands, many still occupied. This is testimony to the ingenuity and skill of early Pacific peoples but also concerning as the knowledge of island building remains known in only a few contexts, fewer than was the case half a century ago. In collaboration with national museums, this project targets artificial islands that exist today in parts of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM – six sites) and Fiji (six sites), engaging with local residents and knowledge holders in culturally appropriate ways to understand/document and visualise how artificial islands were created: specifically where raw materials came from, how they were transported/arranged, how islands were then stabilised ready for occupation, and how they are (or were formerly) maintained. Sea-level rise (at current rates of 4-12 mm/year in the western Pacific) threatens the stability/existence of artificial islands. Their endangerment – and the imperative of documenting/visualising how they were made – thus comes from both the loss of traditional knowledge AND the current/projected rapid sea-level rise. The importance of preserving knowledge of artificial-island building is also as a possible solution for coping with future sea-level rise along Pacific Island coasts.
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: Royal Geographical Society (UK)
Researchers: Professor Patrick Nunn, Dr Tricia King and Ms Rosie Kumar
Contact: Professor Patrick Nunn

Water-related migration in the Western Pacific
As the impacts of climate change cause sea levels to rise, a large-scale movement of people and their communities inland away from the coast is expected in the coming decades. This project will work with communities in Fiji and Vanuatu to help inform sustainable decisions about where to relocate coastal villages. It will focus on securing the future water supply of relocating coastal communities and will involve close collaboration with researchers from CSIRO, The Australian National University, The University of the South Pacific and Lincoln University (NZ).
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: ACIAR
Researchers: Professor Patrick Nunn, Ms Rosie Kumar, Professor Tim Smith, Associate Professor Dana Thomsen and Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr
Contact: Rosie Kumar

Sustainable communities projects

Building community resilience to coastal climate hazards
By working with community members, NGOs and state and local government agencies across three states (Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales), this research seeks to generate new knowledge to guide the delivery of targeted support to communities: empowering at-risk neighbourhoods to prepare and respond to natural disasters and other social-ecological changes.
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: Australian Research Council DECRA
Researchers: Carmen Elrick-Barr
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Building an effective forest health and biosecurity network in SE Asia
The research initiative involves scientists across Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam creating a coordinated network to share biosecurity knowledge, technologies and management strategies. Increased trade, travel and a changing climate are increasing pest threats to South-East Asian forest, and coordinated response can increase biosecurity capacity and protect the future of the region’s forests. The SRC brings expertise in Gender and Community engagement to this project, led by the Forestry Research Institute, UniSC.
Year: 2024—2027
Funding body: ACIAR
Researchers: Simon Lawson, Medline Healey, Harriot Beazley and Russel Warman
Contact: Associate Professor Harriot Beazley

MISTRA Environmental Communication Research Programme
This a four-year research project, in its second phase, is based in Sweden and implemented by an international consortium. The overarching aim is to mainstream an advanced and inclusive understanding of environmental communication in research, policy and practice such that it can effectively underpin and foster sustainability transformations.
Year: 2024—2027
Researchers: Marcus Bussey
Contact: Dr Marcus Bussey

A New Vision for Coastal Resilience: Engaging Communities through Art to Design a Transformative Future
The project explores new methods to engage with coastal communities to envision innovative solutions for a more resilient coastal future. Coastal communities are encouraged to express their desired future using arts-based approaches. The artworks will be coupled with the team’s knowledge of coastal processes, policy and economics to create a design brief, that Landscape Architecture students will use to generate designs. The team will explore the viability of using this novel, interdisciplinary approach to generate community visions as decision support for coastal adaptation.
Year: 2023—2025
Researchers: Dr Natasha Pauli (UWA) (Lead), Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr, Ass Prof Abbie Rogers (UWA), Dan Jan Martin (UWA), Rosie Halsmith (UWA), Dr Michael Cutler (UWA) and Dr Arnold van Rooijan (UWA)
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Our impact

Coastal governance: Embracing vulnerability and change
Australia 2019—2023
An Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project, the goal of this project was to improve the lives of more than 20 million Australians living in coastal areas through better governance solutions.
Funding body: Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
Researchers: Tim Smith, Carmen Elrick-Barr and Dana Thomsen 
Contact: Dr Carmen Elrick-Barr

Sustainable Transformation in Coal Region of the Global South: Challenges from a Resource Nexus Perspective (NEXtra Core)
2022—2023
This study analysed the perspectives for the Just Energy Transition in coal regions in Indonesia, Colombia, South Africa and Mozambique.
Contact: Dr Shannon Brincat

Stateless Children in Lombok
Indonesia 2014—2018
Funded by the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Awards (SSHRC). Participatory research with children of transnational migrants. Cls Prof Leslie Butt and Prof Jessica Ball, University of Victoria, Canada.
Contact: Associate Professor Harriot Beazley