New centre speaks right language on defence talk

Defence

The University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia have joined forces to establish a new defence research and education centre that aims to combat one of the greatest challenges facing the defence industry globally.

Under the leadership of its Chief Executive Officer, defence industry identity Mr Lloyd Groves, the new Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC) will focus on the major challenge of systems integration for defence.

Systems integration means getting electronic systems to "talk" to each other. Because defence involves so many different electronic systems, this is a huge task for defence and related industries in Australia and worldwide.

DSIC brings together university, industry and government stakeholders from across Australia. The centre has been established with seed funding of $1.2 million over three years from the two universities.

"Drawing on each university's expertise in systems engineering, modelling and simulation, DSIC will be a centre of excellence in systems integration - with a focus on providing real outcomes for the Australian defence community," said the Vice Chancellor and President of the University of South Australia, Professor Peter Høj.

"This initiative has the potential to develop a highly qualified pool of expertise in systems integration for the benefit of Australia's defence community, addressing the nationwide skills shortage in this increasingly important area."

Professor James McWha, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Adelaide, said: "This new centre will bring a scale of problem-solving capability to key issues in defence the likes of which have never been seen before in Australia.

"Our aim is to establish a centre of such expertise and repute that it will become indispensible to the Australian Defence sector."

The centre's primary role will be to provide leading-edge advanced engineering and research expertise, advice, and services of direct relevance to the defence community. This will be achieved through collaborative projects, contract-based studies and consultancies, education programs for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and research programs.

The centre has already attracted significant interest from industry.

DSIC activities will be hosted by the two universities until early to mid 2009, when DSIC expects to move into a secure facility at Endeavour House, Mawson Lakes.