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Deakin University's Geelong campus has secured $42 million in Australian Research Council funding, including a prestigious ARC Centre of Excellence in Smart Manufacturing and two ARC Laureate Fellowships in materials science and robotics, establishing the campus as one of Australia's leading centres for the research underpinning advanced manufacturing industries.
The ARC Centre of Excellence in Smart Manufacturing will be based at the Geelong Waurn Ponds campus and will collaborate with industry partners including Ford Motor Company's Australian R&D operations, the Carbon Nexus advanced fibre manufacturing facility, and several Geelong-based engineering firms. The centre's research program focuses on the integration of robotics, AI, and digital twin technology in manufacturing processes — capabilities with direct application in the automotive, defence, and energy sectors that form the backbone of Geelong's economic transformation program.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said the Deakin awards were evidence of the world-class research being conducted in Australia's regional universities and the value of those institutions to both their local economies and to national innovation capacity. "The best research does not only happen in sandstone universities in capital cities. Deakin at Geelong is proof of that," he said.
Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin said the research investments would strengthen the pathway from university research to commercial application that was essential to Geelong's evolution into a knowledge economy. The Carbon Nexus facility, in particular, was generating intellectual property with immediate application in the growing global market for lightweight carbon fibre composites used in wind turbines, aerospace, and automotive structures.
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