Episode 10: Has your innovation actually been successful?

06/07/23 • 51 min

So, you’ve implemented change, well done! How do you know it was all worth it?

This episode is the final from our current series on 'how to innovate' - and it's time to take stock. But really, that all comes down how you measure your success.

In the first episode, "What is innovation?", we looked at three key motivators:
1) for growth and profit
2) for climate resilience or consumer future-proofing
3) for community building.
And it turns out these key motivators are also quite useful as metrics of success.

So, in this episode hear how social and cultural innovations have helped to forge bush tucker markets and create employment pathways at Worn Gundidj, an Aboriginal Cooperative in south-west Victoria; we discover how regional collaborations have created fit-for-purpose research and innovation across the Mallee region of Victoria and; we learn some of the key numbers and strategic questions you should be asking when measuring the success of an innovation.

GUESTS:

Dylan Kelly & Peter Lyles, Horticulture, Worn Gundidj (based in Tower Hill and Warrnambool)

Rebecca Wells, Chief Executive of the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre (MRIC)

Matt Dalgleish – Agricultural market analyst at Episode 3

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

So, you’ve implemented change, well done! How do you know it was all worth it?

This episode is the final from our current series on 'how to innovate' - and it's time to take stock. But really, that all comes down how you measure your success.

GUESTS:

Dylan Kelly & Peter Lyles, Horticulture, Worn Gundidj (based in Tower Hill and Warrnambool)

Rebecca Wells, Chief Executive of the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre (MRIC)

Matt Dalgleish – Agricultural market analyst at Episode 3

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Previous Episode

Episode 9: Tapping into Circular Economies

Can you heat a hospital with wheat stubble? Or use chipped almond trees to improve your soil? These are some examples of circular economic trials that are underway in Australia at the moment.

Arguably, never before has there been such an incentive to develop circular economies, with the costs of fertiliser, fuel and electricity all rising significantly over the past few years.

But one of the big challenges in agriculture, is that we operate in linear economies, rather than in circular ones (i.e. most farmers buy inputs to produce outputs).

Even still, new circular economies are emerging across multiple sectors, in part to address the problem of the high cost of inputs and also to address environmental and sustainability concerns.

So, in this episode, we look at three very different circular economic solutions - where waste products are being re-used, recycled, or reprocessed for fertiliser, bio energy... and even water retention in soil. We look at circular economies from a local farm scale to regional initiatives (including heating a small Central Victorian hospital, with plant material waste).

GUESTS:

Neale Bennett – Almond grower in Merbein, Victoria (and participant in an Australian ‘Whole of Orchard Recycling’ study)

Daryl Scherger – Victorian Bioenergy Network

Dr Sara Hely – Director of Research at Riverine Plains (the Vic Hub’s NE Node)

For more information visit our website.

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Next Episode

Bonus episode: Building Innovation Teams - Getting Agriculture Research Out into the World

How do we better get new research to farmers, to start-ups for commercialisation, or to Ag industry bodies to build on, distribute and use?
Should we be incorporating a diversity of skills and building teams from the beginning of research?
How can universities and industry better share knowledge and skills?
How do we focus on the trial and error of innovation in science or tech, without IP getting in the way?

Hosted by: Kirsten Diprose, Innovation Ag podcast host and Vic Hub Knowledge Broker.

Panellists:

Natalie Collard – Chief Executive, Food and Fibre Great South Coast
Simon Falkiner - Farmer and Director at Falkiner Ag
Prof. Colin Barrow – lead at Deakin University's Bio Factory and Director for the Centre for Chemistry and Biotechnology.
Sam Brown - Chief Executive, Agricultural Innovation Australia

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

Innovation Ag - Episode 10: Has your innovation actually been successful?

Transcript

Kirsten Diprose:

Innovation Ag is made on the lands of the Gunditjmara and Wurundjeri peoples. We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

Rebecca Wells:

Globally competitive, resilient, sustainable, and prosperous. I guess to us, they're not throw-away keywords. We really think that our position and what we contribute can be quite considerable in the fields that we're working in.

Dyla