The long-term sustainability of the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) industry will be strengthened by a new $20 million Industry Growth Centre based at QUT.
The tender to host the centre, part of the Federal Government's $225 million four-year plan to lift innovation and competitiveness in areas of industry strength, was won by QUT in collaboration with CSIRO, CRC Mining and CRC ORE.
The tender was also developed in consultation with the Queensland Government and Brisbane Marketing.
Headquartered at QUT's Gardens Point campus, the Growth Centre is aimed at growing a sustainable engineering and technology intensive product and service supplier industry to the mining sector that is diversified, globalized and resilient in the face of commodity price fluctuations.
The Federal Government will provide $14 million over four years while the State Government will provide $6 million over four years plus staffing support to the centre.
The four key themes driving the activities of the Centre are: identifying unnecessary regulations that impede sector growth; improving engagement between research and industry; improving the capability of key growth sectors to engage with international markets and access global supply chains; and improving management and workforce skills.
The Industry Growth Centres Initiative is the centrepiece of the Australian Government's new industry policy direction. As well as METS, Growth Centres are being established in the following sectors:
•Food and Agribusiness
•Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals
•Oil, Gas and Energy Resources
The Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre was launched in August.
Professor Rachel Parker, Assistant Dean - Research for QUT Business School, said QUT had a proven track record of ground-breaking research relevant to the METS sector.
"QUT Business School has numerous researchers engaging with problems that are the key challenges of the mining and METS sector including global value chain analysis, technology innovation, organisational culture and entrepreneurship," she said.
"QUT also has strong capability in the Mathematics and Engineering disciplines in data analytics, visualization and robotics which are fundamental to the future competitiveness of the sector. QUT's combined strength in business and engineering and technology based disciplines makes it the ideal location for the Growth Centre headquarters.
"Brisbane is also ideally placed to serve as the headquarters of the METS Growth Centre, with a survey from Austmine showing Queensland as having the largest number of METS companies of any state, generating revenue of around $21 billion a year."
Media contact:
Rob Kidd, QUT Media, 07 3138 1841, rj.kidd@qut.edu.au
After hours, Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901
