About us
The Mallee Regional Innovation Centre’s vision for the region is as global leader in collectively innovating and adapting to achieve sustainability of its natural resources and food systems.
The Mallee Regional Innovation Centre’s vision for the region is as global leader in collectively innovating and adapting to achieve sustainability of its natural resources and food systems.
With the support of its partners, The University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and SuniTAFE, the Centre is providing a Mallee-centred collaborative innovation network, with a connected system of support, where research and development can be actualised for regional transformation.
With a focus on horticulture, water, energy and the environment, and through connecting businesses, industry, government and researchers, the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre is facilitating new opportunities and innovations for the region.
We are committed to delivering the highest quality research with the greatest impact and in doing so, truly value our region, its industries, environment and communities.
We transition deep insight into foresight to create opportunities out of the region’s biggest challenges. As a collaborator, the Centre brings a combination of backgrounds, experiences, world views and expertise that makes us savvier problem solvers.
What is innovation?
Innovation is a commitment to develop and implement more effective processes, products and ideas to deliver improved outcomes. Innovation should be an in-built part of every organisation, with its culture driving innovative thinking and creative problem solving.
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About the region
The Victorian Mallee is one of Australia’s most productive areas with a Gross Regional Product in excess of $4 billion, of which agriculture represents approximately 50 per cent of that total. The area is noted for its high value irrigated horticulture with a wide diversity of sectors, producing more than 90 per cent of Victoria’s grapes, almost 98 per cent of its nuts and over 85 per cent of the state’s citrus fruit.
The region has shown leadership to establish the top position in irrigated production and environmental management. This success is demonstration of the resourcefulness of the region and its stakeholders.
MRIC will combine existing R&D expertise to address the region’s challenges and priorities for agriculture.
- Export markets are expanding which represents significant market opportunity. MRIC will take into consideration fierce competition, variable exchange rates, bureaucratic constraints and political instability
- Energy costs are a significant production cost; innovative approaches are needed to minimise costs and ensure the profitability of local production sectors
- The region can draw on local skilled labour, great training capacity to manage increasingly automated and technically complex production systems
- Water resources represent a major challenge related to access, availability and cost in the Mallee. Locally, producers have shown ingenuity and leadership to develop and implement water-use efficiency to make every drop count
- The region has high value environmental assets in the Murray River, widely recognised as the irrigator for the food bowl of the nation and famed for its forests and wetlands
- The Murray Darling Basin Plan will see major investment of up to $280 million allocated to environmental measures in the Mallee region across the coming decade