It was an opportune time for reflection and celebration at the UWA Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy (CEEP) 15th anniversary event in October 2023.

Addressing a crowd of about 50 people, CEEP co-directors Professor David Pannell and WA Premier's Mid-Career Fellow Dr Abbie Rogers reflected on how far the Centre had come and what the future had in store.

Image: Professor David Pannell and Dr Abbie Rogers presenting at the event.

Professor Pannell said he and his Centre colleagues were especially proud that many outputs from their research had been utilised by environmental and agricultural bodies around Australia and internationally.

These outputs include tools that CEEP has developed for evaluating public investments in agricultural and environmental projects, helping users to quantify the monetary-equivalent value of environmental and social benefits, selecting the most appropriate policy mechanism to use for a particular agri-environmental issue, and predicting the uptake of new practices by farmers.

“We’ve continued because funders and policy makers have seen value in what we do,” Professor Pannell said.

“Our work is very much focused on solutions, not just on quantifying the problem.

“We take a decision-making approach to the issues we tackle, which is very often what managers and policy makers need. And we are good at integrating knowledge of various types into our decision-making frameworks.”

"The Centre invests time into our stakeholder relationships, which has led to us being a trusted source of environmental policy advice as well as an important contributor of practical research outputs."

Dr Abbie Rogers

Ultimately, Professor Pannell attributed the Centre’s long-time success to its wonderful staff.

“The quality and relevance of the work we do depends entirely on the team,” he said.

“Our performance in traditional academic terms is really strong, but most importantly, we provide a great example of how innovative research can also be highly practical and useful.

“Bringing an economic perspective to environmental and agri-environmental issues is critical if we are going to tackle the problems in practical, effective ways.”

Image: Members of the UWA Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy.

Looking to the future, Dr Rogers said she was especially looking forward to expanding their focus beyond the management of Australia’s terrestrial environments.

“Our contributions are already recognised among decision makers in this space,” she said.

“We are extending this focus with a rapidly growing role in our marine and coastal environments and through providing expertise beyond economics, in other complementing social science disciplines that help to round out our understanding of the human dimensions of environmental policy.”