Australian universities meet to discuss Engagement with the ICT Centre of Excellence
28 Nov 2001
Forty-two academic staff from twenty universities across Australia, representing every state except South Australia, attended a half-day workshop in Sydney on 22nd November to discuss the implication for universities of the proposed ICT Centre of Excellence and potential models of engagement with the Centre. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Federation Consortium which has been formed to bid for the Centre.
The National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE) is responsible for establishing the world class Centre of Excellence for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) research, announced in the Prime Minister's innovation statement, Backing Australia's Ability. Notification of Intent to Submit an Application had to be submitted to NOIE by 16 November 2001.
The "Federation" bid consortium consists of CSIRO, Ericsson, Telstra, DSTC and a number of universities from Victoria, Queensland and NSW. The universities involved in the consortium are:
- from Victoria, Monash University, RMIT University and the University of Melbourne;
- from NSW, the University of Technology Sydney; and Macquarie University.
- from Queensland, The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.
The meeting was open to all universities and notes of the discussion are freely available on the web to all bid consortiums.
Professor Rosenberg, Dean of Information Technology at Monash University stated that
"It is essential that the proposed Centre should foster the development of new and existing IT research activities within all Australian universities rather than to compete against them."
"The Federation consortium is committed to an open process and to providing an opportunity for all Australian universities to have a relationship with the Centre The open workshop was held to enable universities to provide input to bid consortiums and it is hoped that all consortiums will consult the material collected."
- The workshop, which was highly successful, collected input and suggestions on issue which include:
- How universities & major research centres might relate to the ICT Centre
- Arrangements for university higher degree research students
- Arrangements for staff appointments and staff exchange
- Arrangements for project-based relationships.
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