Geoscience Australia’s 10 year priorities

20 December 2019

As the national public sector geoscience organisation, Geoscience Australia is the trusted source on Australia’s geology and geography for government, industry and community decision-making.

The next 10 years presents us with both opportunities and challenges to contribute to a safer, more prosperous and well-informed Australia. In order to deliver on these opportunities, and to remain strong and resilient, Geoscience Australia has outlined our priorities in a 10 year strategic plan – Strategy 2028.

Through this strategic outlook, we have outlined high-impact commitments that make a difference to the way Australia develops and does business into the future. These commitments include supporting a sustainable and profitable resources sector, driving better natural resource management through space technologies and data, and being better prepared for natural hazards.

In order to meet these commitments, we have chosen to refresh our organisational design with a new structure and governance. This structure includes two new scientific divisions, a new corporate division, and the ongoing Office of the Chief Scientist:

  • The Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division brings together our subsurface initiatives and activities. This division will be responsible for building Australia’s resource wealth and securing Australia’s water resources. It will be led by Andrew Heap, who has been with Geoscience Australia for 17 years, including executive oversight of the Exploring for the Future program.
  • The Place, Space and Communities Division structures our above ground initiatives and activities together. This division will be responsible for our work in Australia’s marine jurisdictions, creating a location-enabled Australia and supporting Australia’s community safety. It will be led by Alison Rose, who comes to Geoscience Australia in January 2020 with extensive senior leadership experience within geospatial and intelligence communities in both the public and private sector.
  • The Corporate Division focuses on delivering professional expertise, products, strategies, people and platforms to enable our organisation to deliver on our strategic priorities. This will be led by Trent Rawlings, who has led Geoscience Australia’s enabling services functions since 2015. He has extensive experience in management positions in the Australian Public Service.
  • The Office of the Chief Scientist focuses on building and maintaining extensive stakeholder engagement activities and fostering strategic partnerships to enable an informed Australia and deliver better outcomes for government, industry and the community. Chief Scientist Steve Hill joined Geoscience Australia in 2018 from the Geological Survey of South Australia and has more than 25 years’ experience in the geoscience sector.

This new structure supports our long-term strategic goals and aligns employees and teams to business objectives to better deliver work outcomes.

As a modern geoscience organisation we are committed to delivering for Australia over the next 10 years. Our work plans for this financial year remain the same and we will deliver on our previous commitments as planned.

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