He joined the university after three years in industry where he worked in new product development in the high technology sector. His current research interests include real options analysis, decision-making tools and health economics.
A new approach to environmental governance is sweeping Australia. Two national funding schemes require collaborative bodies to administer funds for regional on-ground projects to manage rivers, coastlines, biodiversity and vegetation. The devolution of power and resources to these bodies is contingent on participatory, representative and transparent processes. This decentralisation of responsibility reflects stakeholder expectations and a focus on empowerment and social capital. Supporters of the new regional arrangements anticipate that the heightened inclusion of community members in decision-making will contribute to a holistic and collaborative approach, in stark contrast to adversarial, 'decide and announce' approaches. Their case is strengthened by the consensus that traditional topdown governance has failed to achieve sustainable natural resource management and may, in fact, have contributed to adverse impacts, including salinity, ecosystem loss and climate change.major natural resource management issues and pressures. The paper highlights that current regional NRM governance arrangements devolve responsibility, although not necessarily power, to regional groups and that conflict arising in relationships between participants in regional NRM needs to be recognised and, where possible, resolved. The sophistication of the data management and information exchange systems of many grassroots NRM groups is also highlighted, as is the need to develop governance arrangements at a regional body level that maximise community participation.
The work of catchment management groups throughout Australia represents a significant economic and social investment in natural resource management. Institutional structures and policies, the role of on-ground coordinators, facilitation processes, citizen participation and social capital are critical factors influencing the success of catchment management groups. From a participant-researcher viewpoint, this paper signposts research directions and themes that are being pursued from the participant/coordinator, catchment group, and lead government/non-government agency perspective on the influence of these factors on the success of a catchment management group in the Pumicestone Region of Southeast Queensland, Australia. Research directions, themes and discussion/reflection points for practitioners include--the importance of understanding milieu; motivation; success; having fun; "networking networks"; involvement of "nontraditional" stakeholders; development of stakeholder/participant partnerships; learning from other practitioners; methods of stakeholder/participant representation; evaluation; the need for guiding principles or philosophy; the equivalence of planning, implementation, evaluation, and resourcing; catchments as fundamental units of Nature; continuity of support for groups; recognising a new role for government; working with existing networks; and the need for an eclectic approach to natural resource management.
In the first of two articles, the authors describe how an internal clinical practice benchmarking group was established in Preston to compare and share examples of best practice. The aim was to ensure consistent high standards of care practice across the trust. Activity related to discharge planning and visiting is used here to illustrate the effectiveness of clinical practice benchmarking as a continuous quality improvement tool. The second article will appear in Nursing Standard on May 3.
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