Australia: Navigating a path from research outcomes to wine sector impact

Wine Australia and the AWRI have embarked on a series of research projects that focus on taking research outcomes through to impact in grapegrowing and winemaking businesses. These ‘Impact Projects’ are the result of a substantial rethink on how projects are structured and, more importantly, how their direction and focus is informed to best serve the wine sector. In the following Q&A, Wine Australia’s new Research Impact Manager Josh Hixson explains the benefits of focussing investment towards research impact. What is research impact and what does it look like? Impact is a broad term, but it is intentionally broad because we don’t want to put barriers on what we are looking to achieve for the sector. Impact can be extension of a new practice or process, development of a new product or service, or push towards a change in attitude. What brings things together under an ‘impact’ umbrella is firstly that any solution is guided by a fuller understanding of the problem, including size, ...