Research Collaboration
Strengths of the Collaboration
The primary strength of the Alliance lies in the comprehensive partnership of participants with capabilities covering the full spectrum of activities along the Supply Chain linking all aspects of its research through to industry.
The impact of new supply chain systems depends on rapid and comprehensive adoption by industry. The alliance will include key private and public sector participants with an adoption focus. The adoption capacity is will further be strengthened by the participation of State Governments, with their industry level focus on infrastructure and technology.
The research task is complex and requires assembly of a wide array of skills, expertise, and capabilities. The Alliance will develop effective management of multi disciplinary research. It stimulates its researchers to embrace their roles in multi disciplinary teams and to integrate their research supported with appropriate governance arrangements for their coordination and supervision.
Researchers and the wider industry have already been influential in the priority setting and planning of the research agenda and they will have further input into implementation.
The Alliance will draw on, coordinate, and focus relevant partner contribution in the following areas:
- Analysis and knowledge of industry trends
- Detailed knowledge of industry interests and priorities
- Participation of researchers in research priority setting
- Direct participation by industry and government in the research
- Formal and informal review and feedback on research relevance and progress by researchers
- Clear pathway to research testing and adoption
The Alliance Participants will provide a critical understanding and access to their industry stakeholders, networks, and individual researchers. Informal networks and communication channels associated with Alliance Participants with dispersed networks of staff support this.
Research Collaboration and Integration
The collaboration structure will draw a large number of participants together in the Alliance. The number of Participants and their scale of commitment will have to match the scale and complexity of the research and delivery challenge ahead. Meeting this challenge requires a high degree of collaboration and coordination, an important component of the role of the Alliance. The Alliance will achieve planned integrated and focused research and delivery process by drawing on the pool of expertise and infrastructure within the Alliance participants into multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational project teams.
Project activities will be embedded in programs linked to key sectors (retail, pharmaceutical, etc) ensuring continuity of effort from initiation of the research idea through to delivery of the research outcomes to industry and/or government. The Alliance acknowledges, through its partner engagement, the changes taking place in ‘near to market’ aspects of supply chain innovation and particularly the expanding importance of the supply chain and other private sector interests in delivering profitable solutions. It also recognises the growing importance of regions in the near to market delivery of research outcomes. Their integration into projects will enhance collaboration and delivery of outcomes.
National Collaboration and Coordination
The Alliance has a national scope and will have an international profile in its focused arena of interest.
National initiatives will involve workshops on subjects of main scientific interest to industry and other stakeholders (at least one a year) the Alliance will organise conferences every second year. The Alliance will support this activity by strong communications initiatives, featuring a quarterly newsletter detailing scientific activity and progress within the Alliance. In addition, it will generally support its partners in maintaining good scientific communication and networking.
In addition, the Alliance will:
- Support international travel to and from Australia for workshops and conferences of relevance
- Financially support students as part of a Research Training program, to undertake parts of their postgraduate training overseas where valuable
- Direct publication of research results to international journals, given the advantages that this delivers in enhanced two-way flow of information relevant to Alliance research initiatives.