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Innovative capabilities in biodiversity science are continually emerging at the boundaries of evolutionary biology, genomics and ecology. These new concepts and tools have considerable potential to assist with many of the complex issues confronting policy and management, such as:

• climate change and adaptation
• conservation zone planning
• habitat fragmentation and restoration
• invasive species and biosecurity
• management of threatened species

Knowledge exchange

A major objective of the CBA is to exchange knowledge, perspectives and challenges amongst scientists and policy makers, and find ways to effectively engage, now and into the future. Below are some of our activities in this area.

• Symposium: Climate and Biodiversity Futures (Nov 2025)
• Workshop: Conservation and the genomics of populations (Oct 2025)
• Symposium: Right-way science approach to understanding impacts of climate change on plants (Sept 2025)
• Symposium: Bogong Moth Summit: uniting people, place and purpose for conservation (Feb 2025)
• Seminar: Single Cell Analysis of Mother Earth (Feb 2025)
• Mini-symposium Land and Climate (Nov 2024)
• Workshop: Stakeholder Engagement: turning lectures into conversations (Nov 2023)
• Workshop: Conservation Genetics in ACTion: a case study for the incorporation of genetic theory into management processes (Mar 2023)
• Seminar: MegaMove: informing global marine megafauna conservation (Feb 2023)
• Industry training workshop Nanopore sequencing for biosecurity (Dec 2022)
• ACT Government symposium Climate Change Adaptation for Environment and Heritage in the ACT (Apr 2022)
• NESP Threatened Species Recovery Hub Genetic assessment of priority taxa and management priorities - Final Report (Sep 2021)
• ACT Government Ideas Mingle (Nov 2020)
• Workshop: Genetic Diversity - Australian Indicators Forum, a discussion on how improved targets for maintenance of genetic diversity could be included in the CBD post 2020 (Oct 2020)
• Workshop: Policy Impact Masterclass, in collaboration with ANU’s Public Policy & Societal Impact Hub (Aug 2020)
• Workshop: Spatial genetics in fire-ground fauna to provide a rapid assessment of the extent of genetic divergence across faunal populations in fire-affected areas (Apr 2020)
• Workshop: Adaptations to climate change - science and policy perspectives (Nov 2019)
• Workshop: Emerging areas of research in Reintroduction Biology (July 2019)
• New CBA Knowledge Broker appointed (May 2019)
• The Australian Academy of Science's report Investigation of the causes of mass fish kills in the Menindee Region NSW over the summer of 2018–2019 (Feb 2019)
• The Australian Academy of Science's submission to the Draft Revision of Australia's Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and ABC Radio Canberra’s Breakfast Program interview with CBA Director Craig Moritz about the draft Strategy (March 2018)
• Round table discussion about the Dept. Environment & Energy's Draft Revision of Australia's Biodiversity Conservation Strategy with CBA scientists and Dept. representatives from the Biodiversity Policy/Biodiversity Conservation Division (March 2018)
• Workshop: Citizen science and biodiversity in the age of artificial intelligence (Oct 2017)
• Editorial in CEED’s Decision Point: Evolutionary biology – what is it good for? (Oct 2016)
• CBA Conference: The interface of evolutionary biology and policy impact (Sep 2016)
• Conference session: Public communication and policy issues associated with species delimitation (Apr 2015)
• Seminar: ALA Two-way Indigenous Engagement Case Study (Mar 2015)
• Conversation article: Remote Indigenous communities are vital for our fragile ecosystems (Mar 2015)
• Project: Atlas of Living Australia Two-way Indigenous Engagement Case Study (2014-15)
• Science discussion: Current practices and future goals for conservation planning based on the increasing availability of new, large-scale biodiversity data (Apr 2014)
• Conference workshop: The contribution of biodiversity genomics to policy and management (Apr 2013)

Other outreach activities

• Using Virtual Reality for undergraduate evolution and conservation biology teaching - Genestreams, Ben Beeton’s SciArt (2020)
• Totally Wild story (TW26/137) - Paul Oliver's interview on Frogmouths and how they may have dispersed between Asia and Australia - work from the Synthesis Group Crossing Lines: A new synthesis on Asian, Melanesian and Australian biotic exchange (8 August 2020).
• Public seminar and panel discussion: Evolutionary Science for a Changing World (Dec 2019)
• Bush Blitz ACT expedition (Namadgi NP and ANBG Community Day) (Nov 2018)
• Sponsorship and promotion of QuestaGame's University bioQuest (Apr 2018 and Apr 2019)
• Public seminar: Big questions in biology: Australia’s biodiversity, its past, present and future Craig Moritz (Aug 2016)
• Article in the Research School of Biology’s Alumni newsletter (March 2016)
• Public seminar: Species, taxonomy, genomics and you – a guide for the perplexed Kevin Thiele (Apr 2015)