Since 2007 the team at cesar have been combining their passion for sustainability with cutting edge science to achieve positive outcomes for the agricultural sector and wildlife conservation in Australia.
While cesar is now an independent company, the organisation had its beginnings in 2000 as an Australian Research Council special research centre spread across three universities in Melbourne; La Trobe University, Monash University and The University of Melbourne. Headed by Professor Ary Hoffmann, the organisation was referred to as The Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research (shortened to CESAR).
Doctors Andrew Weeks and Paul Umina were both employed at CESAR as postdoctoral research fellows, and later promoted to the executive board until CESAR ended in 2009. There were many important discoveries made at CESAR, which had a focus on understanding the impacts of environmental stress on species distributions. Unfortunately these findings were often not being adopted by business, industry and government. So Andrew and Paul began to focus on working with people and organisations on the front line of agricultural pest management and wildlife conservation. Eventually cesar was established as a way to effectively provide scientific consulting and research focused on delivering practical outcomes to a range of industries and clients.
In the following years the business has taken on a range of projects and clients in the agriculture sector, wildlife ecology and genetics areas. In the short time cesar has been operating, the team have made several important discoveries and provided high-quality outcomes to over 60 private and government organisations.