The role of a knowledge broker in improving knowledge and understanding of climate change in the Australian rangelands

Abstract

This paper considers the role of a knowledge broker to coordinate and connect activity within a cross-disciplinary project to deliver climate change science and research to regional natural resource management (NRM) planning in the Australian rangelands. We use the Rangelands Cluster Project as a case study. Due to the additional challenges facing project delivery in the rangelands such as remoteness, distance and low and sparsely distributed population, the project development phase included the central role of a knowledge broker to support the project objectives: identifying climate change information needs, providing quality information that can be incorporated into NRM planning, and establishing networks of researchers and NRM planners across the rangelands. The knowledge broker facilitated a process that included face-to-face meetings, workshops, surveys, email and teleconferencing to establish relationships and identify priorities as well as to refine project outputs. This facilitation allowed clearer communication between parties who were very remote from each other and worked in different disciplines, ensuring the different expertise was brought into the project, connections made and relationships formed.