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Tuesday, 20 July 2010

In the minds of many academics pure science and applied research are worlds apart, yet an applied research centre at The University of Western Australia last year produced a third of the University's publications in the top international journals Nature and Science, all from industry co-founded projects, demonstrating that astute research project design can satisfy both academic and industry priorities.

The Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET) based at UWA, promotes a philosophy that applied research and pure science are two sides of the same coin. CET research projects have achieved a high success rate in their ARC Linkage bids and have also won a much coveted ARC Discovery Grant (in 2008) – a grant always associated with pure science research.

Outcomes from the ARC Discovery Grant are already being applied to relevant industry programs, bringing value and deeper scientific understanding back to applied projects.

"ARC's visionary Linkage program is fundamental to our success. The program allows us to design projects which are fully funded by industry to address industry challenges, and also do that little bit extra that is traditionally too high risk for industry to fund alone, yet holds the potential for very high impact outcomes" CET Research Fellow (and co-author of Nature and Science papers in 2009), Dr Marco Fiorentini said.

As he explains it, the CET approaches research from an industry starting point.

"We start with the problem faced by mineral companies and work back to look at what the fundamental science issue is that we have to crack."

This is a paradigm shift from the approach of many academics who investigate basic processes and then go looking for the application.

"Traditionally, as scientists we often don't know if our research is used and by the same token, industry has little access to ongoing evolving cutting edge science because they have little time, facilities or academic expertise, and are caught up in the day to day pressures of the mining and exploration industry."

It is this approach by CET, of assisting industry in their research needs while also 'intellectualising' the project to address a fundamental science question, that has been a key to the Centre's success.

Created as a joint venture between UWA, Curtin University of Technology, the exploration industry and the WA Government, the CET is aimed squarely at the mineral industry's need to increase the discovery rate of new high quality mineral deposits. In essence, the CET is a gateway linking industry with academia.

"Since mineral deposits are essentially 'freaks of nature', in that they are anomalous expressions of much larger earth processes, if you want to understand them, you have to understand how the planet works," Dr Fiorentini said. "Every question that comes from industry has at its core a fundamental science question."

CET is host to one of the world's largest nickel research teams and also has exploration and geological expertise in gold, iron, geophysics and image analysis, and progressive risk and value assessment. at the mineral industry"s need to increase the discovery of new mineral deposits.at the mineral industry"s need to increase the discovery of new mineral deposits. at the mineral industry"s need to increase the discovery of new mineral deposits.

The high esteem in which CET is acknowledged among its industry and academic peers results from the world class excellence of its researchers coupled with its ability to work so effectively with industry. This is also reflected by 60 minerals companies contributing to CET as Corporate Members.

Walking the balance between industry confidentiality and academically publishable results has not been an issue for CET according to Dr Fiorentini. He said the solution to the specific industry problem was the commercially sensitive aspect of the research, but the fundamental science solution was generally not, therefore this high academic impact outcome can be published first.

"The role of CET is to help create a competitive advantage, not destroy it. Similarly, partner companies have been sensitive to our need to publish. A balance can always be struck."

CET certainly satisfied the University's quest for academic acknowledgement and peer review, publishing three of UWA's nine Nature and Science papers for 2009 with fundamental outcomes from its research projects. This effort ranked the University second in Australia for Nature and Science publications in that year.

One CET publication noted the discovery of how ancient ore deposits hold the key to the Earth"s evolution as well as helping pinpoint concentrations of metals important for the State"s economic development. The secular evolution of platinum group elements in the planet was the subject of a second paper. The third publication detailed modelling of the nickel content of the ancient oceans.

While the academic success of the CET is underpinned by its international team of leading scientists and researchers, the Centre's financial success is underpinned by highly astute business practices.

"CET's business works in two ways. Firstly we encourage academics to realise the value of their research, when it is properly focussed, to industry. Secondly we educate our industry partners on the real cost of research so that the research is fully costed and the research teams are sustainable."

"We have learnt to cost out the budget clearly and look for opportunities such as ARC grants and working with organisations like AMIRA International to link up the right projects with the right industry partners to support pure science as well as its application.

"We see the science that needs to be done, we connect it with industry and then build the funding model to suit the specific project. I think we have shown that you can unlock and fund tremendous research opportunities by knowing how to align these elements.

"It's fair to say that the CET has changed the perception of academics towards the high impact of industry-focussed research and the value proposition of fundamental research to industry."

Media references

Sonia Nolan

UWA Energy and Minerals Initiative

(+61 8) 6488 7586 / (+61 8) 401034103

[email protected]

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