The Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) will examine the case for early and inclusive engagement in infrastructure planning with the University of Melbourne’s groundbreaking Next Generation Engagement Project.
ISCA CEO Antony Sprigg, said: “we have a huge challenge to deliver infrastructure to meet the needs of our growing population without compromising the environment and quality of life of the next generation.”
“Proper consideration of social and community issues from the earliest stages of project concept development and strategic evaluation is essential if we’re to proceed with the right projects in the right place.”
“The optimal timing and approach for engagement is something we look forward to examining with our industry colleagues as part of the Next Generation Engagement Project.”
ISCA is currently reviewing its stakeholder engagement credits as part of version 2.0 of the Infrastructure Sustainability Rating Tool.
“We see real synergies between the work of the Next Generation Engagement Project and our work in developing IS 2.0 and we look forward to sharing insights between the two projects,” he said.
Social license expert, Dr Sara Bice, is leading the project on behalf of the Melbourne School of Government.
“There appears to be an significant challenge emerging in terms of the relationship between communities and infrastructure projects. Almost $20 billion in largely taxpayer-funded projects have been delayed, cancelled or completed and then mothballed over the past decade in Australia and it appears that community conflict may have contributed to this.”
“The Next Generation Engagement Project aims to identify the key engagement challenges and gaps in delivering new infrastructure and to then address them through applied research with industry, government and ultimately community.”
“Partners such as the ISCA will play a vital role in helping us to understand the problem. The experiences of their members at the forefront of major projects will allow us to create a clear picture of the core social challenges facing Australia’s infrastructure delivery.” Dr Bice said.
Over the coming six months the University of Melbourne and its partners will conduct the largest national consultation on engagement to date. This will include:
- a national survey to quantify engagement and social license challenges for Australia’s infrastructure sector and the costs associated with community conflict
- workshops in each capital city with leading Australian practitioners and international infrastructure experts
- a gap analysis that details the most critical knowledge gaps for the community engagement profession
- testing the gap analysis with infrastructure professionals across Australia.
Dr Bice said, “Through this work we aim to identify the biggest roadblocks around engagement, social risk management and social license for infrastructure delivery together with an analysis of emerging trends and challenges.”
“Our aim is to get this information onto the desk of key decision makers in Australia’s infrastructure sector to really inform the discussion. Our intention is that this work will seed longer-term research partnerships that will help industry to make meaningful progress on these issues.”