Healthy lands, healthy communities

When UTS Professor Jason Prior went looking for research inspiration, he wasn’t expecting to find it in an early career researcher. But through an existing Key Technology Partnership (KTP) agreement between UTS and the University of Dundee, he established an international collaboration with Dr Irena Connon. 

“She was very eager to be involved in the linkages which were being developed between Dundee and UTS,” says Prof Prior, who leads a program of research at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures focused on contaminated environments.

“We had about four years of research lined up in that area, and because of her early career researcher status, she was able to be a conduit between the two universities.”

Through the UTS KTP Visiting Fellow program, Dr Connon spent two weeks at UTS in 2017, kickstarting a vast research collaboration focused on the use of social engagement to clean up contaminated environments. The initial program, a partnership between ISF and the UTS Faculty of Health, was funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination and Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, NSW Environmental Trust and the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society.

A growing program of work

That work quickly expanded to include projects focused on sustainability transformations within the built environment. When a project on planning strategies for healthy higher density living came along, Prof Prior and Dr Connon leapt at the opportunity – Dr Connon applied and was appointed as the principal investigator, relocating to ISF for 2.5 years.

“It was a good opportunity to link the University of Dundee with UTS,” Prof Prior says.

“She was one of two fellows who were engaged on that project, and that gave the KTP collaboration a long-term opportunity.

“It linked with the growing interest that was occurring between the University of Dundee and UTS around healthy environments.”

The Healthy Higher Density Living project connected the research team with government partners like Landcom, as well as remediation industry partners including the Australasian Land and Groundwater Association. The research team engaged with more than 4,500 people across contaminated sites within Australia, exploring community perceptions of the risks associated with contaminated lands and the remediation technologies required to fix them. 

We’ve created the first evidence-based guidelines in the world which show how industry can better engage communities on these issues.

Professor Jason Prior

Shaping the sustainability field

As a result of their research collaboration, Prof Prior and Dr Connon have delivered a staggering number of research outputs. In addition to guidance for community engagement at contaminated sites across Australia, they also produced a comprehensive step-by-step guide for community engagement at contaminated sites in NSW. This guide is now in use at several sites across NSW and is considered best practice guidance for contaminated land practitioners by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority.

The pair have also jointly supervised a number of students; co-facilitated workshops and seminars with contaminated land remediation experts; and produced a significant number of conference papers, presentations and joint publications. In 2019, they received a commendation from the Public Health Research and Practice journal for a piece on built environment interventions for human and planetary health.

For Prof Prior, these achievements have their roots in the KTP program, which enables international research collaboration that’s built on a foundation of face-to-face engagement.

“The program provides an important opportunity to really get to know people and work together at a smaller scale during the KTP funding process, it allows you to really establish relationships,” he says.

“It gives you, as a researcher, sufficient space to explore new ideas.”