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The University of Western Australia in partnership with Chevron Australia last night won the 2017 BHERT (Business/Higher Education Round Table) ‘Outstanding Collaboration in Research and Development Award’, presented at a gala dinner at the Park Hyatt in Melbourne.

UWA’s Director of Business Development and Innovation, Mark Stickells said that UWA has enjoyed a successful and productive collaboration with Chevron for more than 15 years.

“The partnership recognises the mutual benefit of our collaboration which fosters innovation in industry, drives research with real impact and enriches the student experience at our University,” Mr Stickells said.

A core component of the collaboration has been Chevron’s support of numerous appointments at UWA, including a Chair in Gas Process Engineering, which is now funded in perpetuity, and Chevron’s selection of UWA as the first Australian partner under its prestigious University Partnership Program.

“We are delighted that Chevron has chosen to use our world-renowned expertise across multi-disciplines at UWA to help deliver solutions to some of their biggest challenges.

“This is just one way we provide value to industry and I’m looking forward to developing this collaboration further and continuing this great work,” Mr Stickells said.

Chevron has invested in the Australian Centre for Liquefied Natural Gas Futures , led by the Chair in Gas Process Engineering, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and nine industry partners, and launched in 2016 as part of the ARC’s Industrial Transformation Research Program.

This year, Rio Tinto’s support of the Centre for Rock Art Research and Management (CRAR+M) was also recognised as a finalist in the ‘Outstanding Collaboration for National (non-economic) Benefit’ category.

CRAR+M’s Director, Professor Jo McDonald and her team were commended for their work on the 'Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming' ARC linkage project.  This is a collaboration between UWA, Rio Tinto and the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation who are researching, identifying, conserving and driving public awareness of significant National Heritage sites in the Dampier Archipelago in North Western Australia.

Speaking at the event BHERT CEO Dr Peter Binks said the award winners demonstrated the very best of business-university collaboration.

"Innovation, strong relationships between partners, the delivery of extraordinary value and new opportunities are factors they all have in common," he said.

UWA first won the BHERT Awards in 2015 when we received the Ashley Goldsworthy Award for ‘Sustained Collaboration between Business and Tertiary Education’ for our long-term partnership with Woodside.

Now in their 20th year, the national BHERT Awards are focused on recognising the outstanding achievement in business/university partnerships across innovation, research and development, education, training and community engagement.  In 2015, UWA won BHERT’s Ashley Goldsworthy Award for Sustained Collaboration between Business and Tertiary Education for the University’s long-term partnership with Woodside.