2019-05-07 P&E Agenda - Item 3 - Attachment 1 - Noosa Sustainability Institute - Concepts and Options Report

Appendix E Detailed Staff Feedback
Workshop 1: Initial Thoughts and Input
Some of the most notable suggestions and points were that the Institute should:
     Have any research undertaken translate to action or implementation.
     Must be accessible across the life stages of community members (i.e., from pre-school to
      retirement, thus creating life-long learning opportunities).
     Have a clear purpose and maintain integrity to its purpose including what it’s not.
     Seek to understand and identify Noosa challenges and is transformative in how it seeks to
      address those.
     Have a form and/or function that is determined by what it’s seeking to do.
     Have an open structure that has broad accessibility.
     Take a strengths-based approach, leveraging Noosa’s talent, networks, community ecosystem.
     Build on genuine partnerships, linking problems through systems approach and applies design
      thinking.
     Have a scope that is large, a scale that is local yet has an impact that is global.
     Any Institute needs to have a level of autonomy from the Council or any other entity.
     Be set up to avoid being driven by individual agendas.
     What is the distinction from the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation? Could any suggested
      structure be placed under their banner?
     How would this be funded and resourced?
     Any institute structure should focus on applied research, bridging the gap from research and
      actual impact on the ground outcomes.
     Another gap is about behavioural change.


Workshop 2: Feedback on preliminary report
     If the project goes to Stage 2 of the formulation of a research Institute, then a topic of work
      should be on how this is different or complimentary to the NBRF.
     Could we have a closer look at what other key groups are already doing, sets the context more.
      It would then be a gap analysis which will help identify where we need to go. How this model
      could deliver of the gap?
     A high level of concern was raised about the potential for duplication and a risk of this has been
      done before, what’s the difference?
     We really need an overarching Sustainability Framework – Targets – then a mechanism to
      monitor and regularly report – so we know whether our interventions/investments are moving us
      towards these or not? How we collectively know if we are making a difference or moving towards
      our targets.
     Do we start with a virtual network that could be resourced to solve problems? How do we
      leverage the Peregian Digital Hub and associated network?
     Any model must have community input/engagement.
     The report looks at universities to create a physical presence within Noosa, although with the
      current higher education funding cuts, is this still realistic in the short term or is this a longer-
      term possibility?

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