Collaborations and Partnerships

Numbers

industry organisations collaborating with the centre

new organisations collaborating with the centre in 2018*

projects with industry and/or research organisation partners

projects with industry partners

VicRoads

Australian Institute of Marine Science

Mitacs

CSIRO

A&T

ABS

The Sax Institute

Australian Red Cross Blood Service

Queensland Academy of Sport

Bureau of Meteorology

Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

DST Group

Cancer Council QLD

Australian Taxation Office

Hwashen Electronics

Aurecon*

AusHSI*

Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)

Bonneville Power Administration

BorderForce

Cotton Research and Development Corporation*

CRC for Spatial Information

ENS*

EpiCentre

Future Fibre Technologies

Global Rotomoulding*

Huawei

ISS

James Cook University

Leica Biosystems

National Energy Resources Association*

Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group*

QLD Airports Limited

QLD Department of Environment and Science*

QLD State Government

Southeast Queensland Healthy Land and Water

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research*

Tilt Renewables

Texas A & M University

University of Bonn

University of British Columbia

University of Padua*

University of Saskatchewan

US Department of Energy

US Shoshone-Bannock Tribes*

Western Australia Marine Science

Partners marked with an * are new organisations collaborating with the centre in 2018.

2018 was a very active year for ACEMS in terms of our collaborations with industry, government and other research institutions. The Centre continued to establish connections with new organisations and strengthen partnerships with our existing collaborators. The Centre engaged in 96 projects with 45 different external collaborators. Of those 41 projects were industry collaborations.

Throughout 2018, ACEMS established new partnerships with 11 new organisations, including industry and research institutions. In addition, in 2018 ACEMS co-hosted 12 Joint ACEMS workshops to help facilitate and build those relationships with our industry and government partners.

ACEMS aims to foster and support collaborations and partnerships through three main goals, they are: by building new partnerships, supporting existing partnerships, and enabling ACEMS member to engage industry. In support of these objectives, in 2018 ACEMS created the Industry Collaboration Support Scheme and the Networking Travel Fund to directly compliment the Collaborative Research Workshops and Industry Affiliate Members Programme which has been moving from strength to strength over the past few years. In the pop out section of this report you can see the initiatives ACEMS has implemented to achieve these goals.

Industry Collaboration Support Scheme (ICSS)

The scheme seeks to encourage collaborative projects with ACEMS Industry Partners and Affiliate Members, as well as encourage new collaborations with key industry and government stakeholders.

The ICSS supports small to medium research projects that help develop collaborative research projects with ACEMS' key research partners. Research projects funded under this scheme are required to clearly demonstrate the objectives of ACEMS towards supporting strategic initiatives, with particular emphasis on increasing ACEMS impact; facilitating collaboration with ACEMS Partner Organisations and Industry Affiliate Members and expand the reach of ACEMS research into industry; and to strengthen ACEMS research objectives.

The scheme was introduced mid-way through 2018, and is gradually gaining pace, with $29,709 awarded to two ACEMS collaboration projects with the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.

Industry Networking Support

Building partnerships with industry requires networking outside of the academic community. ACEMS acknowledges that support to attend non-academic conferences, meeting and networking events is integral to building new relationships and understanding industry needs. ACEMS aims to encourage and support academics to network with industry and develop business development skills and vocabulary.

ACEMS members are encouraged to attend local industry events, conferences, seminars, research group meetings, reading groups, etc. where an opportunity to meet with potential collaborators exists.

Some of the events attended in 2018 included: Defence Industries Queensland's Industry Breakfast, Women in Technology: Academia and Industry in STEM (networking event), and Science Meets Business.

Collaborative Research Workshops

Collaborative Research Workshops are one of the mechanisms ACEMS uses for exploring new collaborations with both existing and new collaborative partners. These workshops bring together staff from industry organisations with ACEMS academics from across the Centre. The aim of these workshops is to explore mathematical and statistical problems which don't currently have a solution and are within a domain that is meaningful to the industry partner. Within these workshops, both members of industry and ACEMS academics, present problems and methodologies that are relevant to the problem space. The format of these workshops is customised to the needs of the industry partner, but the final goal is always to identify potential collaborative research projects. In conjunction with the Industry Collaboration Support Scheme these workshops have shown to be great initiatives to get new collaborations off the ground.

In February 2018 ACEMS hosted two workshops, with ACEMS Industry Affiliate members, one with the DST Group's Joint & Operations Analysis Division at The University of Melbourne, and another with Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) as a part of the 'Modern Statistical Methods for Sports Research' Workshop at QUT.

The workshop with DST Group was aimed at introducing the division to ACEMS' expertise in optimisation, operations research and uncertainty quantification. As an outcome of this workshop ACEMS collaborators, Mark Fackrell and Joyce Zhang, identified a research question of mutual interest in the problem space and have applied for funding through ICSS program to progress the project. The application is to be reviewed in the first Executive Committee meeting of 2019.

The second Collaborative Research Workshop, a part of the 'Modern Statistical Methods for Sports Research' Workshop at QUT allowed ACEMS academics and industry participants to identify several potential collaborative projects that explore new methods in sports performance analytics. One such successful collaboration that ACEMS supports involves QUT's Paul Wu and Kerrie Mengersen, with QAS and Swimming Australia (SAL). The collaboration has included over the past year, a Collaborative Research Project, QUT have hosted vacation students, and the successful collaboration has applied for an ARC Linkage project in late 2018 and ACEMS ICSS funding in 2019.