Ningaloo Marine Park, Western Australia.

Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster

The Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster will combine the research capabilities of universities, the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre and the Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

• 1 July 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011

• What the Cluster does
• Resources
• Partners

The Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster, through the support of the Flagship Collaboration Fund, is playing a part in addressing the challenge of integrating the knowledge of reef use, biodiversity and socioeconomics into a management strategy for the Ningaloo Marine Park of Western Australia.

What the Cluster does

The Cluster brings together scientists from a range of disciplines with the goal of describing, understanding and modelling key processes whereby humans and the reef interact.

The Cluster is delivering systems to predict the impact of different management decisions or development scenarios on both the ecological and socioeconomic health of the region.

It is also determining optimal approaches for monitoring the effectiveness of these options in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

The Flagship Collaboration Fund enables the skills of the wider Australian research community to be applied to the major national challenges targeted by the National Research Flagship initiative.

The Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster contributes to the Wealth from Oceans Flagship program, Marine Nation: Regional Marine Development and Growth.

Resources

As part of the A$305 million provided by the Australian Government to the National Research Flagships over seven years, A$97 million was allocated specifically to enhance collaboration between CSIRO, Australian universities and other publicly funded research agencies.

The Cluster partners will receive A$2.3 million over three years through the Flagship Collaboration Fund and the partners will contribute a further A$5.8 million in in-kind resources.

The Wealth from Oceans Flagship is also providing A$4.3 million as in-kind scientific research as part of the Cluster.

Partners

The project will combine the endeavours of:

• Murdoch University, Western Australia
• Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia
• the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, Queensland
• The University of Western Australia, Western Australia
• Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
• The Australian National University, Australian Capital Territory
• The University of Queensland, Queensland 
• the Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

Learn more about National Research Flagships.