Nuffield Australia postpones Perth conference until September 2023 as scholars prepare to travel the world

Nuffield Australia has postponed plans to hold its national conference in Perth this year but WA scholars are looking forward to showing off their great State in September 2023. The organisation will hold its national conference in Tamworth this year, after plans to hold it there in September last year were called off at the 11th hour due to the then-escalating COVID-19 situation. Nuffield Australia chief executive Jodie Redcliffe said the decision was made to shuffle this year’s conference — planned for Perth — to next year to enable Tamworth to proceed as originally planned. She said the decision was made prior to the WA border reopening on March 4, and would give Eastern States visitors “plenty of time” to be comfortable with travelling long distances. “Last year we made the decision to take the conference virtual, about six weeks out,” she said. “So this year, we will have the conference we were going to have, and then we will go to Perth. “We wanted to give people plenty of time to be comfortable with travelling long distances, and to make sure WA was fully open before we committed to anyone from the east coast coming over.” Dates have been locked in for the Perth conference, with the week of celebrations set to kick off with a dinner to announce the 2023 scholars at the Pan Pacific hotel on September 11. The two-day conference will be held at the same location on September 12-13, while the 14th and 15th will give visitors the chance to join a tour of farms and farm businesses in the Wheatbelt. Ms Redcliffe said exactly where the scholars would visit on the regional tour was being determined. Life is returning to normal for Nuffield Scholars appointed during the past two years, with COVID-19 challenges and border restrictions lessening and global travel opening up a world of opportunity. Before COVID-19, the $30,000 scholarships allowed recipients to spend 14 weeks travelling — across two years — to examine a topic important to their respective industry. The scholarships are open to farmers, fishers and those in associated industries aged 28 to 45. Ms Redcliffe said she was incredibly proud of the way scholars had “coped with changes”, although the organisation had shied away from saying scholarships had been “put on hold”. “We wanted to keep scholars engaged, even when they weren’t able to travel,” she said. “The small hiccup in travel is actually very small when you consider that the Nuffield program is an involvement for the rest of your agricultural career.” Nuffield International held its first Contemporary Scholars Conference in two years last month, with 150 scholars from around the world gathering in Norwich, three hours north-east of London. Scholars announced in 2020 and 2021 will finally embark on their six-week Global Focus Program in June, with the world tour giving them the chance to meet representatives from businesses, organisations and governments to discuss best practice in agriculture. “The scholars that haven’t been able to travel have been a bit behind their schedule … some will travel this year, and some will travel next year,” Ms Redcliffe said. “We have been flexible, and so have our investors. In the next two years, we aim to have caught up in terms of our scholars having their group travel complete. “We are coping with a world where COVID is around … we can’t continue to put life on hold.”