2025: Growth and impact

In 2025, the Centre continued to expand our academic capacity and strengthen our regional impact across the Pacific. Membership grew to include 76 academic, professional and adjunct staff and HDR students aligned to our Centre, representing institutions and agencies across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Pacific. Given 2024’s significant increase in research grants (with 13 new projects awarded), and with a further two grants awarded in 2025, this year’s focus has been project implementation and delivery.

A key priority this year was refining the Centre’s strategic direction and internal processes to better coordinate and amplify our efforts. Central to this work was the launch of ACPIR’s Strategic Plan 2025–2028, which sets out our commitment to ethical, collaborative research that supports sustainable development, strengthens partnerships, builds regional capacity, and advances Pacific-led solutions to shared challenges.

Highlights

• Delivered a diverse program of member engagement, research dissemination and professional development activities, including our inaugural HDR Showcase event, a HDR student workshop on Developing and Sustaining Careers in the Pacific (delivered by key international development experts asociated with the Centre), our Careers in the Pacific Panel, and public research engagement events.
• Strengthened research capacity and mentorship opportunities for emerging researchers through initiatives such as sponsorship of key international conferences, and support for HDR student participation in international and regional research networks.
• Expanded Pacific-focused learning and cultural awareness opportunities, including a collaborative seminar with UniSC’s Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre on Indigenous rights and education policy.
• Supported experiential learning and international engagement by enabling HDR students and staff to undertake research and project activities in the Pacific, building practical experience and professional networks.
• Enhanced ACPIR’s profile and impact through representation at major regional and international conferences and forums, including the Pacific Islands Ocean Conference, the Pacific Week of Agriculture of Forestry, and the Crawford Fund for Food Security’s Annual Conference.

Celebrating our people

• Professor Paul Southgate was awarded the National Shellfisheries Association’s Paul Galtsoff Industry Award, in recognition of his outstanding extension efforts, research contributions, and impact on the shellfish aquaculture industry.
• Director Professor Steven Underhill was project leader and hosted the end of project review for the ACIAR-funded Enhanced fruit systems for Tonga and Samoa (Phase 2): Community based citrus production project at MORDI Tonga in Nukualofa, Tonga in April.
• Core researchers Sarah Burkhart, Saskia de Klerk and Libby Swanepoel were promoted to Associate Professor within UniSC.

Left to right: Professor Paul Southgate and Centre Director Professor Steven Underhill.

Making a difference: Our research in action

Developing livelihoods in the Western Pacific through pearl culture research

Remote coastal communities across the Western Pacific face persistent employment challenges, particularly for women and young people. At the same time, tourism creates growing demand for authentic, locally made and sustainably produced products, presenting valuable opportunities for community-based industries with access to tourism and export markets.

Research funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and led by ACPIR’s Professor Paul Southgate has transformed mabé pearl (half-pearl) farming into a viable livelihood industry for communities in Tonga and Fiji. Since 2010, Professor Southgate and his research team have worked with coastal communities, fisheries agencies and industry partners to establish sustainable systems for mabé pearl culture. 

Unlike the traditional round pearl industry, mabé pearl farming is accessible to local communities with modest infrastructure support and is compatible with coastal lifestyles. It typically requires fewer than 10 hours of labourper week – allowing for flexible participation by women, young people and family groups – while generating returns that can exceed twice the national average annual income. 

Alongside technical training and the provision of farming infrastructure and support, the research program has sought to strengthen long-term economic opportunities through skills development in jewellery making and product design, business and financial management, marketing and retail training, enabling communities to capture greater economic value through locally made, value-added products.

Approximately 32 mabé pearl farms now operate in Tonga, most managed by individual farmers, while in Fiji eight communities have successfully transitioned to mabé pearl culture, with many enterprises operated collectively by women’s or youth groups. 

Communities have reinvested earnings into farming infrastructure, community facilities and local development initiatives. Importantly, the social structure of community based pearl farming and handicraft production has strengthened women’s empowerment by supporting leadership opportunities, collective enterprise models and independent income generation.

Mabé pearl farming is accessible to local communities with appropriate training and modest infrastructure support.

As part of ACIAR-funded pearl livelihoods research in the Pacific region, UniSC Tropical Aquaculture Research conduct mabé pearl and mother-of-pearl jewellery and handicrafts training. UniSC TAR trainer Marie Erl (pictured top right) with the members of the Nasomo Ra Marama Handicraft Co-Operative, Somosomo, Taveuni, Fi

Cultivating healthy futures: Improving school food and nutrition environments for Pacific Islands children

Across the Pacific region, countries face a triple burden of malnutrition, with overweight and obesity, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency occurring simultaneously – often within the same communities or families. Because nutrition during childhood and adolescence strongly influences health, wellbeing and learning outcomes, schools provide an important setting for nutrition education and food provision initiatives.

Since 2018, an ACPIR research program led by Associate Professor Sarah Burkhart has explored how to strengthen school food and nutrition environments across the Pacific. This research has enhanced regional collaboration, influenced policy and delivered both evidence and practical tools to support nutrition education, school food provision initiatives, and the use of local foods to improve health, livelihoods and food system resilience.

Early projects funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) examined nutrition education and school food programs across 14 Pacific countries. Findings helped to establish the Pacific School Food Network (PSFN), which now connects more than 275 members across all 22 Pacific Island countries and territories and supports collaboration, networking and knowledge sharing.

In Fiji, research on food systems and school food environments informed national discussions for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, contributing to recognition of schools as a key mechanism to support the delivery of five key goals for Fiji’s food system by 2030. Since then, the team has also supported the Kiribati and Cambodian governments to develop and strengthen national school feeding initiatives. 

In 2022, the team launched the Pacific School Food Learning and Teaching Hub, which has provided more than 600 educators with nutrition education resources and professional learning opportunities.

More recently, an ACIAR-funded study mapped school food activities across 22 Pacific nations, resulting in the Pacific School Food Activity database, along with reports and technical recommendations that have informed policy and practice regionally and internationally. The research has gained global recognition, including inclusion in a COP28 White Paper and citation in international policy documents, demonstrating its broad impact on nutrition, food systems, and climate-related policy discussions.

Resources

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