SEGRA 2011 workshops
Workshops on Thursday 27 October 2011
| Economic Development for Regional Towns | Associate Professor Geoff Cockfield, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland |
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| Sustainability Technologies | Associate Professor Peter Waterman, University of the Sunshine Coast |
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| The Role of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Building Individual and Regional Economic Opportunity | Prof Jerry Engel, Founder, Centre of Entrepreneurship, University of California |
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| Developing Research Collaborations | Dr Peter Vitartas, Deputy Head, Teaching and Learning, Southern Cross Business School, Southern Cross University |
Economic Development for Regional Towns
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In recent years, regional development theorists and practitioners have become less interested in industry attraction strategies and more interested in ‘economic gardening’, whereby local entrepreneurial skills, and consequently businesses, are developed and enhanced.
This workshop will first place economic gardening in the context of trends in regional economic development theory and practice. The concept will be further explained and strategies for developing entrepreneurial skills will be described and discussed.
This in an interactive workshop and participants will be encouraged to consider the potential benefits and limitations of economic gardening in relation to their own regions. The aim is to identify and refine gardening strategies.
Facilitator: Associate Professor Geoff Cockfield (picture featured) is the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland and his research interests include rural and regional policy.
Guest Speaker: Professor John Martin, Director, Centre of Sustainable Regional Communities, La Trobe University
Sustainability Technologies 
The Information Flyer for Sustainability Technologies can be found here
Showcase: Delivering Decentralised Systems to Regional Australia
Australia wide regional communities and businesses are facing rapidly increasing charges for energy, water, waste water treatment and the management of solid wastes. At the same time, public and private sector providers of these services have to confront the challenges of the delivery of these essential services in a carbon reduced economy.
Practical measures for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to changing climatic conditions are rapidly progressing from concept to reality. Hard and soft sustainability technologiesare available that can assist governmental and commercial enterprises to deliver decentralised essential services.
Already, these technologies are helping to equip regional Australia to better address climatically induced risks and threats by way of extreme storm events, flooding and prolonged droughts. In short, sustainability technologies provide a positive and proactive adaptive response to the challenges arising from global warming.
Specifically, sustainability technologies are helping to reduce the dependency on centralised electric power, water supply, sewage treatment and municipal waste services that are viewed by many as a constraint to economic development in peri-urban, rural and remote regions.
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Showcasing Sustainability Technologies for Climate Change Adaptation aims to provide practitioners with bench mark examples of the practical measures that can help regional Australia meet the twin challenges of decentralising development and adapting to changing climatic conditions. Five interlocking themes will be showcased.
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These themes will be addressed by representatives of cutting edge private and public enterprises who will showcase the hard and soft sustainability technologies for Delivering Decentralised Systems to Regional Australia.
Facilitator: Associate Professor Peter Waterman (pictured above) is an environmental planner with over 37 years professional experience working for governmental and private sector clients. Peter’s formal professional qualifications are in geography, social science, urban planning and environmental management.
The Role of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Building Individual and Regional Economic Opportunity
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The Information Flyer can be found here
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
- What is entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process?
- What is innovation?
- Promoting Entrepreneurship & Innovation in our Regional Economies
- Why Clusters of Innovation are important to Regional Economic Opportunity?
Clusters of Innovation
- What is a Cluster of Innovation?
- What impact do Clusters of Innovation have on Regional Economic Opportunity?
- Global examples of Clusters of Innovation – Silicon Valley,
- What are the key elements of “The Innovation Engine”?
- Characteristics of Sustainable Innovation Clusters
- Why mobility of people, money and technology are important?
- Global Networks of Clusters of Innovation
- What is Super-Cluster?
- Public Policy and Innovative Economies
- What can we do to in our own Regional Economies?
Facilitator: Professor Jerry Engel (picture featured above right) is the Founder of the Centre of Entrepreneurship at the University of California (Berkeley)
Developing Research Collaborations
The Information Flyer for Development Research Collaborations can be found here
This round-table workshop to be conducted at SEGRA 2011 to:
- identify and advance issues facing rural and regional areas of Australia;
- examine opportunities for high level regionally based research connected to regional business and practitioners that can provide insights and solutions ; and
- develop proposals for submitted to nationally competitive granting organisations such as the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) for possible funding.
Who should attend
- Industry who are looking to partner with academic institutions in order to find methods or approaches that can expand their economic development activities in regional Australia
- Practitioners and authorities who are seeking high quality fundamental and applied research to investigate issues affecting rural communities and regional Australia.
- Leading university academics who are seeking to expand their research profile and commit to research projects addressing rural issues.
- Graduate students looking to develop their research skills and identify nationally significant research topics and partners
Ojectives of the workshop are to:
- Identify current and potential collaborative research needs and opportunities
- Facilitate the development of long lasting industry-academic partnerships for fundamental and applied research
- Facilitate the submission of nationally competitive grants to address rural and regional issues
- Encourage young researchers to consider rural and regional issues for research
- Raise the profile of priority issues in regional and rural research for sustainable economic and social development
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Workshop Presenters Dr Peter Vitartas, Deputy Head, Teaching and Learning, Southern Cross Business School, Southern Cross University (picture featured) Ken Moore, Senior Research Manager, Resilient Communities, Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation Dr Anthony Hogan, Director, National Institute for Rural & Regional Australia |