This report provides a final overview and review of the uptake of the East Coast Cluster research outputs by the PWG, including its uptake and contributions of the PWG to a ‘community of practice’. Information supporting this overview was obtained through interviews with participants of the PWG, and to a lesser extent, interviews with local government planners that had participated in the Griffith University Scenario Planning workshops (November 2014 and April 2015). Participants were asked to give feedback regarding which East Coast Cluster research outputs were most useful in providing information in their professional roles relating to climate adaptation planning for NRM, the features of outputs that made them useful, and opportunities to use the research outputs in future activities. Interviewees were also asked questions to give feedback on the PWG in terms of any contributions to their capacity to deal with climate change adaptation, and the impact of collaboration and any partnerships or networks facilitated by the PWG and/or East Coast Cluster research activities.

Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts was carried out, with data organised according to answers to interview questions. These were surveyed and summarised in Section 5. Broadly speaking, the feedback from PWG participants is positive: relating to both the East Coast Cluster’s research applicability and community of practice. Interviewees made many constructive comments related to their use of research outputs (including research output features and opportunities for future use), and capacity building through the community of practice (including knowledge and skills learnt, and present and future collaboration/partnerships/networks attributed to the PWG). Some issues relating to staff turnover, timing of release of research outputs, concurrent research and planning exercises, differing interests and capacities of regional NRM bodies were identified as causes for shortfalls in expected outcomes in some cases.