Creating a Social Capital + Social Infrastructure Measurement Framework to benefit every Australian

Bringing Professor Daniel Aldrich’s expertise to Australia 

Resilient Ready has received funding under the national Disaster Ready Fund (DRF) Round #2 program to bring global disaster resilience expert Professor Daniel Aldrich’s data measurement to Australia.

In collaboration with lead agency SAFECOM, this 12-month project is an extension of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) snapshot project delivered in 2024.

Importantly, the project includes input from all Australian states and territories to create national descriptors and measurement criteria about people connections and places where people connect.

It will also pilot Professor Daniel Aldrich’s social capital and social infrastructure mapping datasets in South Australia.

Pilot testing will be conducted in:

• Adelaide City
• Kangaroo Island
• Whyalla

Discover more about our Social Capital work here.

This is an exciting gamechanger for measuring resilience in Australia – the missing piece of the puzzle!

Renae Hanvin
CEO + Founder Resilient Ready

A new focus on people connections and places that foster them

This project will deliver a National Social Capital + Social Infrastructure Measurement Framework – a first-of-its-kind document that describes these concepts in the context of disaster risk and resilience.

We are filling a critical national gap by acknowledging and measuring the people and place-based connections that matter most — strengthening community resilience before, during, and after disasters through a clearer focus on social capital and social infrastructure.

The missing piece of disaster resilience 

This project will result in a data tool that combines Professor Daniel Aldrich’s social capital research (bonding, bridging, and linking ties) with innovative social infrastructure mapping across three South Australian communities: Adelaide City, Kangaroo Island, and Whyalla.

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If you’re aware of any policies, programs, research, data collections, or measurement tools that should be considered in developing a National Social Capital and Social Infrastructure Measurement Framework to benefit all Australians, we’d love to hear from you.

Here is a link to contribute to our findings.

If you have any questions please contact our team at [email protected] or call 0401 566 602.

Connecting with every Australian state and territory

40 events | 300+ participants | 6 weeks

In May-June 2025, Renae Hanvin and Professor Daniel Aldrich visited every state and territory to engage with the people, programs, and policies driving resilience at the local level. These discussions highlighted multiple benefits of social capital and social infrastructure measurement.

• Bringing the human factor into disaster resilience measurement, recognising that people have the capacity to build and sustain resilience within their communities
• Opportunity to capture the baseline and measure impact over the long-term
• Providing evidence to guide policy, planning and investment
• Combining social capital and social infrastructure data with vulnerability indicators to better understand how to support vulnerable communities
• Transferrable data across many sectors such as education, health and social services, and climate adaptation

With thanks to our funders

This program is funded under the Disaster Ready Fund (DRF) Round 2 Grants program funded by the Australian Government and the South Australian Government.

Views and findings associated with this project are expressed independently and do not necessarily represent the views of State and Commonwealth funding bodies.