WaterRA is proud to highlight the growing impact of its partnership with the Cooperative Research Centre for Solving Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in Agribusiness, Food and Environments (CRC SAAFE), delivered through the Water Industry Consortium (WIC). Together, WaterRA, WIC partners and CRC SAAFE are advancing national capability to understand, monitor and manage antimicrobial resistance (AMR) across Australia’s water systems—one of the most significant emerging challenges for public and environmental health.
Driving foundational research to map and assess AMR risks
WaterRA, and WIC partners are supporting two major foundational CRC SAAFE projects that are building the evidence base needed for actionable AMR management in the water sector. These projects focus on:
- Monitoring AMR across Australia’s water cycle, generating consistent national datasets; and
- Developing system‑wide AMR risk modelling tools capable of identifying AMR hotspots and evaluating mitigation strategies across wastewater, recycled water and receiving environments.
Together, these initiatives are designed to equip the sector with robust methods and decision‑support frameworks, enabling improved understanding of AMR pathways and more targeted intervention approaches. These efforts closely align with CRC SAAFE’s 2025 research priorities and its mission to strengthen Australia’s capacity for evidence-driven, risk-based decision-making across environmental and agricultural systems.
Enhancing national AMR surveillance methods
Beyond these core projects, WIC partners are actively contributing to a broader suite of CRC SAAFE initiatives focused on AMR monitoring, analytical tools and quality assurance frameworks. These include:
- Developing environmental water quality guideline approaches for antimicrobials
- Advancing chemical and molecular monitoring methods
- Contributing to cross-sector AMR DNA reference materials
- Supporting development of rapid, field-ready AMR detection technologies
These activities support CRC SAAFE’s national AMR capability by focusing on s standardisation, comparability and scalability of methods.
Building future AMR leaders through sector-wide collaboration
The partnership is also contributing to growing Australia’s future AMR workforce. Water utilities and WIC partners are engaged in:
- Supervising and hosting PhD candidates
- Participating in project advisory committees
- Providing operational context to ensure research outcomes are relevant and practical for water sector application
CRC SAAFE’s 2025 Annual Report highlights the rapid growth of its education and training program, including 23 recommended PhD projects, 14 SAAFE Scholars, and national engagement through the AMR Research Roadshow, which reached four states and attracted 170 participants.
These investments reflect both organisations’ commitment to strengthening Australia’s long-term AMR capability pipeline and embedding One Health thinking into everyday practice.
A partnership demonstrating our proactive approach to addressing environmental AMR
CRC SAAFE’s 2025 Annual Report underscores that environmental AMR remains a rapidly evolving challenge requiring deep collaboration across sectors. The report notes that Australia is making significant progress through strong partnerships—particularly in environmental services—where the collaborative program with WaterRA and WIC partners spans multiple CRC research streams and contributes directly to shaping national AMR policy and surveillance efforts.
By supporting coordinated national action, shared monitoring standards and emerging diagnostic technologies, WaterRA’s partnership with CRC SAAFE is helping to ensure Australia remains proactive and globally connected in responding to the complex issue of antimicrobial resistance.
In recent weeks WaterRA has hosted three workshops for the WIC to discuss priorities for the next round of projects. The workshops have focused on three themes; environment, wastewater and products (biosolids, recycled water). As research results become available for the baseline projects these will also inform the discussion of priorities for further work in the next phase.