Hydrogen, collaborative robots among ARC Training Centre announcements

A combined $24 million in funding has been announced for five new Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centres.

Federal education minister Dan Tehan made the announcement on Tuesday, saying that research funded would “find practical solutions to challenges facing Australian industry.”

The Industrial Transformation Training Centres scheme scheme aims to foster links “between university-based researchers and other research end-users to provide innovative Higher Degree by Research (HDR) and postdoctoral training.”

Current priorities are these industries: advanced manufacturing; cyber security; food and agribusiness; medical technologies and pharmaceuticals; mining equipment, technologies and services; and oil, gas and energy resources.

The five centres below were announced.

* ARC Training Centre for Collaborative Robotics in Advanced Manufacturing: This project will develop robotics applications to combine the strengths of humans and robots in shared work environments. This centre is led by Professor Jonathan Roberts at Queensland University of Technology.

* ARC Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies, and Applications (OPTIMA): This centre will research scientific approaches to improve design functionality, with the potential to transform sectors including advanced manufacturing, energy resources and critical infrastructure. It will be led by Professor Kate Smith-Miles at The University of Melbourne.

* ARC Training Centre for Information Resilience: This project aims to build workforce capacity in Australian organisations to utilise data and improve productivity. This centre will be led by Professor Shazia Sadiq at The University of Queensland.

* ARC Training Centre for The Global Hydrogen Economy: The centre aims to develop and scale-up hydrogen generation and its export. It will be led by Professor Rose Amal at The University of New South Wales.

* ARC Training Centre for Cryo-Electron Microscopy of Membrane Proteins for Drug Discovery: This centre will examine membrane protein structures in detail to lead to structure-enhanced drug design. It will be led by Professor Patrick Sexton at Monash University.

Picture: Universal Robots

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