The University of Western Australia is set to formalise its three-year-old thrust to position itself as the key tertiary player in the resources space with the launch of an Energy and Minerals Institute.
The University of Western Australia is set to formalise its three-year-old thrust to position itself as the key tertiary player in the resources space with the launch of an Energy and Minerals Institute.
The university hierarchy briefed WA cabinet on the initiative today, as part of a series of sweeping changes being introduced to the institution, including streamlining of undergraduate degrees it offers.
The new institute will have its own board and a policy role, though its key objective will be to provide a portal for the industry to access research and education across the various disciplines within UWA which traditionally operate as vertical silos.
While not unexpected, the forthcoming launch further highlights the competition between local universities, and some interstate, to be acknowledged as a leader in the nation’s biggest business.
The wealth generated by the resources sector and its role as the primary driver of the WA economy has increasingly attracted the interest of university players, individually struggling for relevance and funding.
Much of the recent efforts to link with industry have been collaborative, such as the WA Energy Research Alliance, and there has long been talk of a so-called resources university which draw together the expertise of all the state’s key tertiary educators.
The Chamber of Minerals and Energy at one stage had the Minerals Institute WA, which formed an interface between the industry and the public. Chaired by local resources heavyweight Peter Lalor, it favoured more collaboration and less duplication between tertiary education providers.
However the 2007 appointment of former CME boss Tim Shanahan as UWA director energy and minerals initiative was seen as a more competitive approach to addressing the industry’s needs.
While UWA’s position as the state’s sandstone university cut across many of the disciplines required in the resources sector, it was largely done in a traditional format.
In contrast, its main cross-town rival, Curtin University of Technology, has come from more humble beginnings and had long focused on the resources sector with more specialist courses, including its Kalgoorlie-based WA School of Mines and the recently opened $116 million Resources and Chemistry Precinct.
Curtin has also found private sector backing for some of its specialist research facilities, such as the Rio Tinto Centre for Materials and Sensing in Mining and the Woodside Research Facility.
On top of resources and energy, the Bentley-based university has three other major focuses: ICT and emerging technologies; health; and sustainable development.
Mr Shanahan said the new institute was one of three areas of concentration – the others being agriculture and oceans – which would form a bridge between UWA’s existing faculties and the outside world.
These were elements of a strategy to place UWA in the top 100 world universities by 2013 and the top 50 by 2050. It is currently ranked 113th.
Mr Shanahan said that WA was unusual in hosting both the minerals and energy sectors at world scale.
“There are not too many places around the world where they are stapled together in one place,” he said.
