RCE Western Australia brings together the passion and expertise of researchers, educators, students and partners of the University of Western Australia to make change in their regions, nationally and globally. 

Western Australia is geographically Australia’s largest state, occupying nearly one third of the continent, and is home to more than 2.7 million people. Just over 2 million of these residents are clustered in the 6,412 square kilometres that constitute the Perth metro area, meaning that just over a quarter of the population live in regional and remote Western Australia, in nine diverse regions covering more than 2.6 million square kilometres. This unique context represents a staggering scale of opportunity and challenge.

Climatic constraints and geographic distance often mean large distances exist between coastal centres and more isolated regional towns and communities. 
The land is extremely ancient and infertile compared with other regions of the world, with most of the state having very low relief and average elevation of 400m. In the most heavily populated areas in the south-west of WA, mean annual rainfall varies from a low of 301mm up to a high of 1278mm.