Every interview we do is different. Our style is open-ended and we will follow the flow of the conversation. However, there are some key themes that our conversation will likely touch on, including:

• What types of skills do regional communities need to support both economic participation and community resilience?

• What are the enablers and barriers to meeting local skills needs?

• Where and when does reskilling typically occur in regional contexts, and how is it supported?

• What strategies are being implemented to increase equitable access to work and reskilling opportunities for regional populations?

• What skills are needed in regional communities not only for access to high-quality jobs, but also for supporting community wellbeing and sustainability?

• How do different levels of government (local, state, federal) understand and prioritise reskilling?

The interview will last about 40 minutes and will take place online via Zoom.

The interview style will be open-ended and conversational rather than a series of closed-questions.

Subject to your permission, we would appreciate recording the interview. If you would prefer not to be recorded, we will make brief notes of our conversation after the interview. The sound file will only be used for transcription.

Participation is entirely voluntary, and you can decide to withdraw from the project at any time, and without reason. If you decide to withdraw, there will be no negative consequences, and your data will not be used.

Unless you request to be identified, conversation will be de-identified. Unattributed quotes may be used in project outcomes. These include: conference papers; scholarly articles; summary reports for industry and government bodies; submissions to government and parliamentary inquiries and op-eds.

Reference made to any off-record topics of conversation in the project outcomes will be generalised to ensure that you will not be personally identifiable.

Even with de-identification, there is still a small risk that you might be identified by what you tell us. To manage those risks the following safeguards have been put in place:

• If you mention something identifiable which cannot be de-identified or generalised, we will either seek further permission from you to use it or we will not use it at all.

• You have the option to review, edit and veto the use of your transcript or parts of the transcript.

Only the four researchers of the RISE project team will have access to the transcripts, the sound recordings, and the notebooks which will be typed-up and safely stored in password-protected, encrypted files at the University of Melbourne, and kept for five years. After this time, the data will be securely erased. If a third-party is used to type up the interview, they will only have temporary access to the sound recording.

Our research protocol has been approved by the University of Melbourne Office of Research Ethics and Integrity (application 2025-33795-71790-4)

We anticipate that our project will benefit Australian society by providing new knowledge about how workers reskill at a range of scales and how this impacts households, communities and regions.

Your input will provide us with new knowledge about the enablers and barriers of reskilling from a stakeholder perspective.

This knowledge will be used to develop the questions that we will ask reskilling workers and households during the later stage of the project. Our aim here is to generate information that might be useful to ensure social, cultural and economic sustainability of communities in regional Australia.

Whilst it is unlikely that you will personally benefit from participating in this research, your contribution will provide broader benefits to Australian society by helping us to better understand the changing nature of reskilling practices, work and communities.

The final project outcomes will be available on this website. We can also send these to you on request.