Looking Out for Australia's Future

Communicating Australia’s most complex climate and resilience science in clear, human stories – helping policy makers make informed decisions, strengthen national resilience, and build public trust, while giving CSIRO greater reach, clarity, and strategic value across its communications.

Client & Context

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s National Science Agency, plays a crucial role in helping government and industry make evidence-based decisions about the nation’s future. Redboat partnered with CSIRO to bring complex, data-rich science to life through clear, engaging visual storytelling.

Building on a long-standing relationship, CSIRO engaged Redboat to create a series of four animations for policy makers, ministers, and business leaders. The goal is to communicate key findings from the Australian National Outlook (ANO) and related research into national disaster resilience, compound risk, and climate attribution.

Challenge

Each topic addressed critical but abstract scientific concepts – from modelling Australia’s economic and environmental futures to understanding how multiple risks compound under climate stress. The stories needed to remain scientifically precise and politically neutral while being accessible to a wide non-technical audience.

Redboat’s challenge was to distil these complex systems into short, emotionally resonant animations, each one to two minutes long – without losing meaning or nuance.

Redboat’s Approach

Redboat worked as both content and production partner, not just a supplier. The team collaborated directly with CSIRO’s senior communications lead and scientists to ensure scientific rigour, while also shaping each story through the lens of human impact and national resilience.

Using Redboat’s five-stage lifecycle process: Discovery → Strategy → Design → Production → Implementation – each animation was carefully developed over about two months. Across the one-year collaboration, Redboat facilitated discovery sessions with subject matter experts, converted technical research into narrative scripts, and designed visual metaphors that made complex relationships understandable.

The solution

Four animations formed the series:

Australian National Outlook (ANO) Roadmap – illustrating the choices Australia faces in shaping its long-term economic, social, and environmental future.
National Disaster Resilience Planning – showing how building smarter and stronger today can reduce future impacts from floods, storms, and other natural disasters.
Compound Risk – explaining how interconnected risks such as climate change, pandemics, and drought can magnify one another’s effects.
Climate Attribution – visualising CSIRO’s ability to model how much climate change contributes to specific weather events.

Each animation was supported by social media versions, animated GIFs, and stills for online and presentation use.

Results & Impact

The animations were showcased on CSIRO’s website, social channels, and international events. They became key communication tools for ministers’ offices and policy forums, helping bridge the gap between scientific evidence and policy discussion.

Feedback from CSIRO and stakeholders was strongly positive – the series was described as “the point of the wedge in generating public and ministerial interest”. The content has continued to support CSIRO’s mission to enable evidence-based planning for Australia’s long-term wellbeing.

Strategic Value

This project exemplifies Redboat’s role as a strategic content partner – translating research into clarity and action for decision-makers. Beyond delivering animations, Redboat helped CSIRO shape national conversations around resilience, climate, and future readiness – expanding understanding at both public and policy levels.