Science for advanced manufacturing

Professor Peter Schubel, Centre for Future Materials Toowoomba, University of Southern Queensland.

  • Over 80 advanced manufacturing research centres
  • 3 times global average cited for additive manufacturing
  • 16,600 manufacturing businesses
  • $361 million private manufacturing R&D investment annually

Recognised as a global Advanced Manufacturing Hub by the World Economic Forum, Queensland excels in advanced manufacturing research undertaken with industry and international partners. In Additive Biomanufacturing topics alone, Queensland researchers had over 70,000 publications between 2017 and 2021, and the most recent of these, during 2020, were cited 3 times the global average (citation rate of attributable publications). Their research includes new material development (e.g. solar film), additive and subtractive manufacturing (e.g. bioscaffolding), robotics, robotic vision and artificial intelligence (in health, food, biosecurity and defence), micro and nanoscience, biofuels and other bioproducts, bioprocessing and synthetic biology.

Queensland has several leading institutes and centres and over 80 research organisations involved in advanced manufacturing research.

Leading advanced manufacturing research centres

Advanced manufacturing research centres

Industry-research collaboration and commercialisation

Support for advanced manufacturing in Queensland

Polarizing light micrograph of a thin film of the polymer polycaprolactone (PCL). Open larger image

QUT Centre for Biomedical Technologies - Polarizing light micrograph of a thin film of the polymer polycaprolactone.

Photo credit: Christina Theodoropoulos

Queensland’s regional Industry Manufacturing hubs are co-located or closely affiliated with our regional universities. The Rockhampton Manufacturing Hub for advanced food, metal and rail manufacture and the Mackay Resources Centre of Excellence that focuses on mining equipment, technology and services (METS), resource recovery, and agriculture are at QCUniversity campuses.

Queensland supports a network of regional Innovation Centres and vibrant QiHub innovation community. The university-industry relationships with these hubs and centres are shown in the Strategic Visualisation Tool.

Metal eggsOpen larger image

QUT Centre for Materials Science - Egg-shaped high-Ni NMC particles Lithium (blue), Nickel (green), Manganese (pink) and Cobalt (red).

Photo credit: Tristram Jenkins

The Advanced Manufacturing 10 Year Roadmap and Action Plan positions Queensland as a leader in advanced manufacturing technologies, products, systems and services.

The roadmap is supported by the Queensland Industry Partnership Program (2021–2025) that is investing A$350 million in several priority industry sectors such as advanced manufacturing, hydrogen, biofutures, biomedical, defence, aerospace, space, resource recovery and METS.

Talent pipeline for advanced manufacturing

Micro-hollow-Pillow structureOpen larger image

Australian National Fabrication Facility - Micro-hollow-Pillow structure for resistive-pulse testing.

Photo credit: Caizhi Liao

Most of Queensland’s universities offer under and post graduate courses and units in advanced manufacturing (For example: courses at QUT, courses at UQ, and courses at JCU). Queensland universities partner with the manufacturing and engineering sector to give undergraduates the opportunity to learn and network with professional engineers, designers and academics. The $5.4 billion Cross River Rail project provides such real-life experiences.

From their earliest years students in Queensland engage with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) under the strategy for STEM in Queensland state schools and teachers access resources via the STEM Hub and the Queensland STEM Education Network provided by Queensland universities.

High school students can be industry-ready under the Advanced Manufacturing Gateway to Industry Schools program. This is long-term development program for a highly-skilled workforce delivered by the Queensland Manufacturing Institute.

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More advanced manufacturing news →

Strategic Visualisation Tool

Advanced manufacturing, materials and biomanufacturing

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