Editorial

This special Synthesis issue brings together practical and theoretical responses to themes arising from the research in the latter course of the seven-year Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) (2010–2017), with the caveat that research work within the CRC is still underway at the time of writing. The themes are being drawn together in the Synthesis and Integration project, which brings together the major cross-project findings typically of most immediate use to policymakers. Research synthesis consolidates the knowledge gleaned from different projects to describe the impacts of that knowledge for industry, community and policy. In this special issue, the articles describe knowledge about, and founded in, remote and very remote Australia which comes from research designed with local communities, government and industry stakeholders. As a body of research, the mixed quantitative and qualitative methods of CRC-REP are grounded in a substantial evidence base and address questions defined and shaped by stakeholders and partners. Integration is an essential tool to develop from research findings; it contributes to solutions, support or intervention for entrenched and wicked problems and improves the baseline of participation and innovation in remote industry. In this special issue, the research findings contribute significantly to what is known of the complexity where remoteness, polity and ideology combine and impact on remote Australians, their environments and the stakeholders whose interests lie in these regions.