Major Research Facilities

The Western Australian Government is contributing $20 million to the Western Australian Energy Research Alliance over a five year period.  The fund began in December 2004.

The funding is to support and assist WA:ERA to:

• Maximise Australia’s self sufficiency of petroleum liquid over the next 30 years.
• Develop economically feasible solutions for gas and condensate reserves.
• Develop technologies for exploration and production.
• Education and training.

The other partners are Curtin University of Technology, The University of Western Australia and CSIRO. The strategic alliances are with Chevron Australia Pty Ltd and Woodside Energy.

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WAMSI is a collaborative joint venture, with major partners being the Government of Western Australia, CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), Curtin University of Technology, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University, the University of Western Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Chemistry Centre of WA.

The WA State Government is funding WAMSI $21 million over five years under the WA Major Research Funding program (WAMRF). Funding is provided to pursue world class marine science practices to support the conservation, sustainable management and utilisation of WA’s unique marine environment. WAMSI was officially launched by the Premier on 18 May 2007. To date, WAMSI has received $5.5 million.

WAMSI will undertake research into six interlinking research nodes:

• Strategic Research on WA’s Marine Ecosystems
• Climate Processes Predictability and Impacts in a Warming Ocean
• Managing and Conserving WA’s Marine Environment 
• Sustainable Marine Ecosystems
• Marine Biotechnology, Biodiversity and Aquaculture
• Ocean Science for Offshore and Coasting Engineering

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The WA Government has committed $7.8 million over four years to provide industry researchers and the business community with high speed, high performance computing facilities. The Interactive Virtual Environments Centre (iVEC) is Western Australia’s hub for advanced computing, located at Technology Park, Bentley. This initiative is a joint venture between CSIRO, Central TAFE, Curtin University of Technology, The University of Western Australia and Murdoch University and is supported by the Western Australian Government.

iVEC provides access to cutting edge high performance computing (HPC) and visualisation laboratories to researchers and industry. It also holds seminars and conferences on computational science and HPC, as well as provides support to students, industry personnel, researchers, academics and scientists through training, scholarships and seminars on advanced computing, research and development opportunities.

iVEC has three facilities based around a considerable high-performance computing capability:

• The Australian Resources Research Centre (ARRC) – focusing on minerals, petroleum and chemistry research. In addition to high performance computing, the facility supports grid computing and has a large form-factor stereo projection system for visualisation projects.
• The Western Australian Supercomputing Program (WASP) – with its HPC and visualisation, including an upright dome immersive display, WASP is used for a range of projects.
• Informatics – focusing on biotechnology and life sciences. The facility also supports grid computing and immersive visualisation.
  

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The Centre for Food and Genomic Medicine (CFGM), a Centre of the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, is a world-class research cluster established to tackle the twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity, also known as “diabesity”.

The CFGM is a unique blend of scientific, clinical, agricultural and food technology researchers from WA-based Federal and State Government bodies, universities, hospitals and medical research institutes. The Centre has been established and is being supported via a strategic investment of $4.5 million from the State Government of Western Australia.

For more information please visit http://www.cfgm.org.au/

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The Department of Industry and Resources (DoIR) is managing a Joint Collaboration Agreement between the State of Western Australia, the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Curtin University of Technology for the purposes of promoting research using the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne.

The State along with UWA and Curtin University are jointly contributing $5 million over five years from 2007 – 2011 (the State is contributing $3.25 million) as a Foundation Investor to the Australian Synchrotron to enable preferential use of the synchrotron beamlines for WA researchers. The Australian Synchrotron produces a number of beamlines of extremely bright light which may be used for a wide range of experiments in fields as diverse as biosciences (e.g. cell biology) and minerals exploration (e.g. rapid analysis of drill core samples).

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The Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF) is an efficient state-of-the-art facility for the collection of molecular genetic information covering large-scale DNA sequencing, genotyping, microarraying, agricultural genomic services and other resources for the genetic and physical mapping of chromosomes, mutation detection and associated bioinformatic analysis.

The AGRF website is http://www.agrf.org.au/.

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The Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility (AMMRF) is an initiative of the Australian Government as part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). It is a joint venture between university partners, funded by the Commonwealth through DEST and the State Governments of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The AMMRF will have formal links to smaller units or specialist facilities through Linked Laboratory and Linked Centre relationships. The AMMRF website is http://www.ammrf.org.au/.

 The facility provides access to a vast array of instrumentation. These include widely used optical, electron, x-ray and ion beam techniques and importantly, state-of-the-art flagship platforms that form world leading capabilities. Such capabilities include pulsed-laser local electrode atom probe, high-throughput cryo-electron tomography, high-resolution SEM and spectroscopy, high-precision ion microprobe and ultra-high resolution TEM platforms.

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As the Nanostructural Analysis Network Organisation has come to the end of its operation, several of its nodes have joined the new Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility (see above).

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The National Networked Tele-Test Facility (NNTTF) provides fabless companies and design houses with engineering, pre-production test and characterisation services. NNTTF is accessible through the web with leading edge capabilities addressing the most complex testing and IP validation challenges such as mixed-signal and high-end digital integrated circuit (IC) technologies as well as other emerging technologies.

The NNTTF website is http://www.nnttf.ecu.edu.au/.

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