Future Drought Fund

The Australian Government is inviting applications to deliver services under the Future Drought Fund: Drought Resilience Research and Adoption Program – Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs (Hubs).

This program will establish eight regionally-focused Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs. The Hubs will be located in regional areas that reflect the key agricultural and climatic zones across the country. The regions targeted are:

• Southern NSW
• Southern QLD/Northern NSW
• South-West WA
• Victoria
• Top End NT/WA
• Tropical North Queensland
• South Australia
• Tasmania.

The Hubs will be multidisciplinary and inclusive ensuring that the focus of the Hubs is to support agricultural industries and communities to adapt, reorganise and transform so that they are more resilient to future droughts.

The Hubs will support networks of key stakeholders to work together, including primary producers, grower and community groups, industry, researchers, entrepreneurs, education institutions and governments to:

• provide extension, adoption and commercialisation support
• plan co-designed and demand driven drought resilience research, development, extension, adoption and commercialisation (RDEA&C).

The total funding available under this grant opportunity is $64 million (GST exclusive) to support eight Hubs and their activities through to June 2024. Each Hub can receive up to $2 million per year (GST exclusive).

Applications close at 11:00 pm AEDT on 23 December 2020.

More information about the grant and application process can be found on the Australian Government Community Grants Hub website here.