For a prosperous, healthy and
vibrant regional Australia
Doing what no single organisation or industry can — tackling regional Australia’s complex and interconnected challenges and unlocking unrealised potential with integrated, cross-sector solutions.
Our regions
contribute
40
per cent of economic output
1/3
Australia’s workforce
2/3
All exports
The National Challenge
Regional Australia underpins national prosperity and cultural identity but captures limited long-term value while carrying disproportionate risk.
It also faces multiple growing and interconnected pressures that reinforce one another including rising costs, climate variability, fragile supply chains and workforce shortages, amplified by distance and geographic spread.
Many are structural. Industries that support regions like agriculture, energy, processing and transport are tightly linked in practice but are planned, regulated and invested in separately. Each system is managed as though it exists in isolation with its own objectives, timelines and measures of success. Costs and risks are borne locally while returns, ownership and decisions flow out.
Research
Themes
Five integrated research themes addressing the interconnected challenges and unrealised potentials that matter most.
Affordable and Secure
Secure energy and inputs for regional value chains
Locally produced, low emissions inputs. Distributed energy and micro-manufacturing at regional scale. Ownership and value retention models
Value Retention
Regenerative value chains that retain value locally
Freight and logistics redesign. Value chain stress-testing and diversification. Governance, ownership and benefit-sharing models. Traceability, verification and biosecurity. Social licence, First Nations and ecosystem co-design models
Country as Capital
Natural capital, landscape productivity and climate adaptation
First Nations participation and knowledge preservation. Natural capital accounting. Cross-sector risk frameworks. Financial instruments for stewardship. Climate-adapted land management and biosecurity. Riparian and on farm restoration.
Regenerative Residues
Waste and byproducts become revenue
Co-create a shared values framework guiding CRC projects, investment decisions, and measurement of impact in diverse regional communities across Australia.
Data for Decisions
Enabling systems and regional capability
Co-create a shared values framework guiding CRC projects, investment decisions, and measurement of impact in diverse regional communities across Australia.
Why Partner?
This is a generational opportunity to reshape how regional systems create and retain value. We are seeking foundation partners to collaborate and coinvest in the bid development process (Round 28, 2027).
That includes co-designing the vision, setting the research and commercialisation agenda, shaping priority regions and sectors and curating a core partnership group.
The process is led by Food Agility CRC with a proven track record of delivering impact at scale. Through focused co‑design workshops, partners will not only shape the CRC, but also build internal capability, extend networks and deepen relationships.