Australia's universities are highly competitive, especially in their pursuit of research dollars, yet some of the best research occurs when they collaborate.
Australia's universities are highly competitive, especially in their pursuit of research dollars, yet some of the best research occurs when they collaborate.
Nothing illustrates this better than the WA Energy Research Alliance, which has achieved the unprecedented feat of gaining funding commitments of $70 million from the State Govern-ment, Woodside Petroleum and Chevron.
None of the partners in WA ERA – CSIRO Petroleum, Curtin University and the University of WA – would have obtained this level of funding on their own.
Gordon Martin, founder of Coogee Chemicals and chairman of WA ERA, said it was “a good example of universities that are very different collaborating in the energy area” to try and become one of the world’s top three centres in oil and gas engineering.
“In terms of research and the universities, you could not get a better environment in which to retain research funding in energy or minerals,” Mr Martin said.
Curtin University vice-chancellor Lance Twomey was also upbeat about collaborating with business.
“We’ve never had such good working relationships with business and industry right through the state,” Professor Twomey said.
“These partnerships that we are putting in place, often with more than one business and more than institution, work well and I think are part of the way of the future.”
WA ERA is one of several research centres located near Curtin with a resource sector focus.
It is based at the Australian Resources Research Centre in Bentley, which was established in 2001 with a view to becoming a centre of expertise for the petroleum and minerals industries.
Also based at ARRC is the Interactive Virtual Environments Centre, a joint venture of Central TAFE, CSIRO, Curtin, Murdoch and UWA.
IVEC, which secured $5.5 million in government and industry funding, aims to enhance the uptake of high performance computing and visualisation technologies in sectors like mining, petroleum, medicine and architecture.
One of the longest-running and most successful research collaborations in WA is the Parker Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Integrated Hydrometallurgy.
First established in 1992, the centre gained a third seven-year funding deal (worth $20 million) from the Federal Government late last year.
The core partners in the Parker Centre include CSIRO Minerals, Curtin and Murdoch universities, the Department of Industry and Resources and the University of Queensland.
It also has backing from nine major mining companies, including Rio Tinto and Anglo-Gold Ashanti.
The Parker Centre is currently based at Murdoch but plans to relocate to Curtin, to be part of the Resources and Chemistry Research and Education Precinct.
The planned precinct brings together Curtin’s chemistry faculty, CSIRO Minerals and the State Government’s chemistry centre, which will be relocating from East Perth.
The State Government’s centres of excellence program provides funding for a diverse range of research collaborations.
One of the newest is the Centre of Excellence in e-Medicine, which brings together Edith Cowan University, the Lions Eye Institute, UWA and the Australian National University.
It is also supported by a range of national and international universities, hospitals and medical agencies.
Its research is aimed at improving medical testing and diagnosis of diseases that currently require patients to travel to hospitals or central care settings.
A quiet achiever in the health area is the Centre for Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics, a venture between Murdoch and Royal Perth Hospital.
Helped by a HIV virus research breakthrough, the centre was recently awarded a $12.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $5.6 million from the National Health and Medical Research Council.