A Centre for Advanced Defence Research and Enterprise (CADRE-OCE) to develop new concepts and technologies to protect Defence personnel, first responders and the general community has been launched at the University of Melbourne.
The University is partnering with QUT, the University of Adelaide, and the University of New South Wales to form a leadership team that will collaborate with other universities and industry partners across Australia.
CADRE-OCE will assist in building sovereign capabilities, leading to novel technologies and a clearer pathway for research translation and commercialisation.
Funded by the Department of Defence, CADRE-OCE will be dedicated to solving Operating in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Environments (OCE) challenges in partnership with Defence and industry by co-designing and co-developing novel and innovative technologies that will enable Defence personnel and the wider population to work in safe environments.
QUT CADRE-OCE principal researchers are Associate Professor Tony Parker, Professor Esa Jaatinen, Associate Professor Thierry Peynot and Professor Graham Kerr.
Associate Professor Tony Parker said QUT was a proud founding partner of the DSTG OCE CADRE.
“We look forward to working with Defence, Defence Industry and our university partners to solve the challenges of the Centre’s large and ambitious research program focused on protecting defence personnel ,” he said.
“QUT has leading technologies across robotics, computer vision, human performance, neurophysiology, molecular biomarker and advanced sensing modalities that we will develop with our research partners to create asymmetric advantage for Defence.”
University of Melbourne’s Professor Jia-Yee Lee, Director of CADRE-OCE, said the centre would tap into the breadth and depth of academic expertise and capabilities to create critical mass and scale that was essential for driving innovation in Australia.
“We will join together key elements of the innovation life cycle – from experiments, to prototypes, product development, commercialisation and finally implementation to ensure that the benefits of innovation are realised for the Defence end-user and the general population,” Professor Lee said.
“Technologies developed by CADRE-OCE partners will have dual-use applications across multiple industry sectors such as healthcare, agriculture and mining, which share similar challenges to those in Defence.
“New knowledge, leading-edge technologies and new ventures, together with a growing pipeline of STEM talent, will be some of the outcomes of CADRE-OCE.”
Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro said CADRE-OCE would mobilise the national science, technology and innovation ecosystem around challenges of scale and bring together the best and brightest minds in academia and industry.
“Not only are we investing in new ideas, we are building the STEM talent pipeline and deepening sovereign skills by investing in our future research and innovators,” Professor Monro said.
CADRE-OCE will operate for five years, with an option to extend.
