About the Monash Regional Australia Project (MRAP)
The Monash Regional Australia Project (MRAP) is an interdisciplinary, collaborative and cross-campus program established by Monash University in 1999. The research program brings together the University's established expertise in the analysis of social, economic and environmental change. The researchers associated with MRAP have skills in policy analysis, social and community research, data compilation, processing and analysis, questionnaire design, surveys, qualitative research methods, and action research. The research program was initially funded under the Special Monash University Research Fund and subsequently by grants from the Australian Research Council and through contract research. MRAP is co-ordinated by Dr Jacqui Dibden, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University.
MRAP has Been Involved in Three Main Types of Work:
- Analyses of population, economic and social welfare trends for rural and regional Australia, based on national and regional level data and information. This data is summarised for Victoria in the MRAP publication, Regional Victoria: Why the Bush is Hurting and All Change! Gippsland Perspectives on Regional Australia in Transition
- Case studies of social, historical, community, economic, environmental and policy trends, including the sustainability of rural towns, deregulation of the dairy sector, the adoption of information technology within small rural communities, changing land management practices, and conflicts over resource development and use. A major recent project - on Sustainability of Australian Rural Communities - adopted a case-study approach.
- Contributions to discussions about regional futures and to policy development. MRAP completed a major report for the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (NRE) in early 2001 on Social Capability in Rural Victoria: The Food & Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Sectors . This project aimed to provide NRE and other change agents with a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the changes occurring in the food and agriculture sector, the ways in which beneficial changes can be supported and the probable effects of introducing particular policies and programs to manage change. MRAP has recently (2002-03) been engaged in the Immigrant Communities Project, which is concerned with the participation in natural resource management of farmers and horticulturalists of non-English speaking background. As part of the Sustainable Rural Futures program, MRAP has been engaged in a number of other consultancies, including a major social research project for the Department of Sustainability and Environment Land Stewardship Project, which resulted in a report entitled Stewards of the Land: Landholder Perspectives on Sustainable Land Management.