Allan Dale

Allan Dale is a Professor of Tropical Regional Development at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University and the Chief Scientist for the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA). Allan is also a University Fellow with Charles Darwin University’s Northern Institute and has a strong interest in integrated societal governance, with a particular focus across the tropical world, northern Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. He leads JCU’s contributions to Queensland’s Rural Economies Centre of Excellence (RECoE) and the Communities in Transition Program, the Human Dimensions of the GBR, the Northern Development agenda and emerging approaches to Collective Impact.

He has both extensive research and policy expertise in building strong societal governance systems, but particularly those related to regional economic development, social development and natural resource management. Allan was previously the Chair of Regional Development Australia Far North Queensland and Torres Strait Inc. and the CEO of Terrain NRM. He has held executive and management roles within the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines and the Department of Community Services. He also has global experience in respect to the social impact assessment of community development. Having started his career as an agricultural scientist, Allan’s doctoral work explored rural development in remote Indigenous communities, and he has long working relationships with Traditional Owner groups throughout northern Australia. In 2015, Allan gave a TEDxJCUCairns talk which you can view HERE