Caption: David Halliwelll (L), from the Vic Hub’s Knowledge Broker team at Deakin University, presents Ceilidh Meo with the award for Driving Productivity and Efficiency.

Drought Resilience 2025 conference

Celebrating innovation and collaboration in drought resilience

The Drought Resilience 2025 conference brought together researchers and industry professionals from across Australia and internationally to share research and practical approaches that strengthen our preparedness and recovery from drought.

Hosted by the Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub, the conference explored how collaboration across disciplines — from science and technology to law, business, humanities and Traditional Knowledge — can lead to impactful, real‑world outcomes.

Recognising research that builds drought resilience

Each Node lead of the Vic Hub presented a priority research area award.

• Best Student Presentation or PosterJames Malcher – Thirty years of irrigated crop composition change: Analysing multi-decade trends in Australia’s Southern Murray-Darling Basin

• Gippsland Node Priority Research Area Award – Sustainable landscapes
  Udara Piyathilake – Rehydrating leaky landscapes: A decision-support tool for enhancing water retention in degraded landscapes

   

• North-West Node Priority Research Area Award – Cropping and low rainfall environments
  Kent Wooding – The role of agronomists in Australian agriculture

   

• North-West Irrigated Horticulture Node Priority Research Area Award
  Erandi Herath (Erandi is also a 2024 Drought Resilience Scholarship awardee) – Application of selected plant growth-promoting bacteria for enhancing drought resilience in tomato plants

   

• North-East Node Priority Research Area Award – Driving productivity and efficiency
  Ceilidh Meo – United We Stand: Co-operative Food Production, an Old Model for New Challenges

   

• South-West Node Priority Research Area Award – Drought recovery
  Helen Suter – Pasture sward species diversity can provide drought resilience benefits for the grazing-based dairy industry