Rural and remote health services supporting ageing populations face ongoing challenges, including workforce pressures, fragmented care, and limited opportunities to engage in and apply locally relevant research. The Strategic Multidisciplinary Alliance for Rural Research Translation (SMARRT) is a Victorian partnership established to address these challenges through sustained, practice led collaboration between rural health services and academic partners. The John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research (JRC), at La Trobe University, focuses on improving the health and wellbeing of older people living in rural communities through research that develops innovative solutions to key challenges. The JRC provides administrative and research support for the SMARRT partnership. SMARRT brings together remote, rural health services researchers to collaboratively identify research priorities, co design projects, and support the translation of evidence into everyday practice. The partnership is intentionally autonomous and values driven, shaped by the needs and priorities of member organisations rather than external funding or government directives. This approach enables research activity that is responsive to local contexts and service realities. This presentation outlines the evolution, governance and guiding principles of SMARRT, and examines how trust based relationships, shared leadership and equitable participation enable meaningful collaboration across diverse rural settings. Drawing on recent partnership activity, it highlights examples of co developed research initiatives focused on integrated care, evolving scopes of practice, consumer experience, and digitally enabled models of care SMARRT demonstrates how rural health services can work collectively with academic partners to strengthen research capability, generate locally relevant knowledge, and foster a sustainable community of practice grounded in shared learning and service impact.