The University of Queensland is expanding its ties with small and medium businesses through a group of national scientists.
The group, called Future Materials, shares the specialised skills and multi-million-dollar equipment of five Australian tertiary institutions with business.
Future Materials aims to help manufacturers in biotechnology, aerospace, electronics and mining with information and access to equipment and expertise on plastics to metals, training and material evaluations and processing.
“Our role is to go out and talk to people and diffuse technology to them,” Queensland’s Future Materials manager Dr Peter Kambouris said
“If they [businesses] have a problem they can come to the University and get something done.
“Our aim is to link people to get research and development happening”
He said he wanted to build relationships with businesses to help them access expensive machinery such as UQ’s $1.2 million X-ray photoelectron spectrometer.
Food manufacturers can use the spectrometer to identify contaminants in food without making a massive capital outlay.
UQ hosted the Queensland launch of Future Materials by the Federal Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources and former UQ student Ian Macfarlane, at the UQ Chemistry Building today.
Future Materials, previously Australian Materials Technology Network (AMTN), was rebranded to make it more in line with business expectations.
Seed funding for the network was provided by a $2.6 million grant from the Federal Government’s industry arm, AusIndustry, which had wanted more businesses to use university infrastructure.
Dr Kambouris, who is based at the state’s Future Materials office in UQ’s Brisbane Surface Analysis Facility, said Queensland businesses needed to compete with global businesses through technology.
“We’re not going to beat people on the labour rates or the volume we can produce, so the way we have to compete and stay competitive is our technology.”
For more information contact Dr Kambouris (phone: 0400 366 380, 3365 3829 or email: p.kambouris@future.org.au), visit the Future Materials website http://future.org.au/contact.html, or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
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