Jeremy Smith

The details for the 2020 Humanitarian Innovation Awards organised by the Warren Centre are available - https://humanitarianinnovationawards.com.au/ -- includes an Innovation Pitch for ideas and concepts due in April and a Humanitarian Hackathon July 24-26 in Sydney. The program and events are supported by RedR Australia and open to students and professionals.

Here is an update from md-2019 from David Walker at the University of Wollongong on either existing Humanitarian Engineering courses and plans for a new minor in the area. Comes out of the mining program and includes an ongoing collaboration in Rwanda: https://www.uow.edu.au/about/learning-teaching/academic-portfolio-update/news-archive/david-walker-gives-students-a-humanitarian-edge.php

A summary of education and research mostly at universities in Australia attached here. This was prepared by Rhys Keogh,, based at UTS, who I think is Australia's first "Engineering for Change Fellow". These are competitive short-term research fellowships from the US-based Engineering for Change (EfC). This report was prepared by Rhys as a snapshot of education and research in the area (Humanitarian Engineering, or Engineering for Global Development as I think E4C call it). Certainly highlights again the rapid growth in the area in Australia and NZ. Certainly highlights the potential role of this CoP and collaborations across universities, organisations and EA. State-of-EGD-Aus-NZ-Full-Report_2019.pdf

In December the relevant Federal Government Minister announced a call for submissions to feed into a new Australian Development Policy to: "This policy will drive the Government’s international development efforts in support of security, stability, prosperity and resilience in the Indo-Pacific." Submissions are open until January 31 from individuals and organisation in case of particular interest to anyone. Details are here - https://dfat.gov.au/aid/new-international-development-policy/Pages/default.aspx Previous recent strategies on AustralianAid have included the 2018 - 2021 Innovation Strategy, which certainly had a focus on technology and its role in development (attached here) DFAT-Innovation-Strategy-FINAL.pdf

In 2019 a review and consultation was started for the Australia and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC). From the documentation: "The Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) is a set of three related classifications developed for use in the measurement and analysis of research and experimental development (R&D) undertaken in Australia and New Zealand. ANZSRC is used both in the public and private sectors. It allows the comparison of R&D data between sectors of the economy (e.g. general government, private non-profit organisations, business enterprises and educational institutions)." As part of the changes, Humanitarian Engineering was a new field that was added to the 09 Engineering Field of Research (FoR) classification. This is great recognition of the emergence of the area and would allow further investment, activities and research to be undertaken and recognised. These are important for tracking and justifying investment and activities in broad areas of research. Comments on the proposed changes are welcome from individuals and organisations until February 10, 2020. Could we have an agreed submission on the proposed changes from this group, to advocate for this change? Should Humanitarian Engineering actually be a separate 4-digit category with then multiple 6-digit categories for specific areas (such as contexts) and activities (such as appropriate technology, M&E, capacity building, ...)? All the proposed changes and details are attached, anzsrc_consultation_draft_for.xlsx anzsrc_consultation_draft_seo.xlsx anzsrc_review_consultation_draft_indigenous_research.pdf anzsrc_review_consultation_draft_paper.pdf