MLA R&D reports now more accessible

Red meat producers and industry stakeholders can now access and digest Meat & Livestock Australia’s (MLA) research and development (R&D) reports more easily with the launch of a range of initiatives by MLA.

In response to stakeholder feedback about the challenges in finding and accessing R&D reports, MLA has improved accessibility and transparency of R&D investments.

MLA General Manager Research, Development and Adoption, Michael Crowley, said among the initiatives has been an overhaul of the R&D section of MLA’s website.

“The redesign provides consistency of online content, improves the user experience, enhances searchability and increases the quality and transparency of MLA’s R&D deliverables,” Mr Crowley said.

“All of MLA’s R&D deliverables have been transferred over to the new website platform, which now returns faster, more accurate search results.

“MLA’s recent R&D projects and 38 most searched R&D themes now have easy-read summaries so that stakeholders can easily digest relevant R&D findings. They include an overview of MLA’s investment in that area, featured resources and reports.

“Each of MLA’s individual R&D projects have their own landing page, with an enhanced layout that includes key information such as why MLA invested in the project, the key outcomes and how the project benefits the Australian red meat industry.

“The new project pages also include a project snapshot that details the project start and end date, relevant species and region.”

To date, 150 recently published final reports have been published with easy-read summaries, with all 1,000 R&D projects that have been completed since 2015 to be published with easier to read summaries.

A total of 8,500 R&D projects are being organised by assigning 30 points of metadata to each to significantly enhance searchability.

Mr Crowley said to better showcase MLA resources and publications, resource hubs have also been created on the MLA website, providing a ‘one-stop shop’ of best practice advice, tools and information for topics relevant to producer needs.

“Best practice information has been curated on popular topics such as Leucaena, phosphorous, dung beetles, climate variability, CN30, mental health and pasture dieback,” Mr Crowley said.

“Content is regularly updated on the hubs as relevant content is published via MLA’s communications channels.”

To access the ‘hub of hubs’ page on the MLA website, click here.
 
Earlier in the year, MLA launched the monthly R&D Round-Up e-newsletter, which features short and sharp summaries of MLA’s recently published R&D as another way to enhance stakeholder accessibility to MLA’s R&D. To subscribe to the R&D Round-Up e-newsletter, click here.

To visit the new-look MLA R&D search page, click here.