Collaboration is vital in NRM space, as no one person or organisation can successfully address all the complex socio-ecological issues facing NRM in Australia. Research institutes and NRM practitioner agencies bring complementary expertise, experience and resources to complex – and at times conflictual – social, institutional and external contexts, at the personal and organisational levels. Limited literature has recorded successful instances of long-term collaboration between research and practitioner NRM agencies in Australia, and even fewer peer-reviewed studies investigating possible barriers to relationships and communication on which these collaborations are based. Our study investigated the perceived barriers for establishing and maintaining agency-research collaborations, using a qualitative analysis of transcripts of interviews with ILWS/CSU researchers practitioners from North East CMA.
