UniSA is on track to open its $247 million Health Innovation Building on North Tce towards the middle of next year. The building will be new headquarters for the Cancer Centre for Biology, which will develop links with up to 250 of Australia’s top researchers who are working hard on developing a more in-depth understanding of cancer and health issues.

UniSA Vice Chancellor Professor David Lloyd said the Health Innovation Building was already helping the university attract talent from Australia and overseas.

“The university’s strong research environment focuses on areas such as scarce resources, future industries and cancer prevention and management.

“Our collaborative engagement with industry, government, collegiate and community partners ranks UniSA as one of Australia’s leading universities for strategic research partnerships.”

The building will also house a Museum of Discovery, a public science centre aimed at 15 to 22-year-olds, and new headquarters for the Innovation and Collaboration Centre, a partnership between UniSA, the Government and DCX Technology, formerly Hewlett-Packard to fast-track start-ups.

The building is positioned at the start of Adelaide’s biomedical precinct – a $3.6 billion hive of health-related research, study and innovation collaboration which includes the SAHMRI, University of Adelaide’s new $250 million Medical and Health Sciences Building and the $2 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Professor Lloyd said Adelaide’s universities have always worked collaboratively with the SAHMRI, which is owned by UniSA, Adelaide and Flinders universities together with SA Health, and is an example of this ongoing partnership.

Professor Alastair Burt, Adelaide University’s Executive Dean Health Sciences, agreed that investment by the universities – supported by Federal and State Government funding – in the biomedical precinct would only strengthen those ties.

“There was a tendency (for universities) to be working in silos and you see competition as being across the road rather than competition being from interstate and internationally,” he said.

“My colleagues from interstate and internationally would bite their hands off to be in a precinct of this sort.”

The uni’s 14-level Medical and Health Sciences building is the biggest project in the history of Adelaide University and has as its centrepiece 24 simulation suites where students can learn all manner of procedures – everything from anaesthesia and laparoscopic surgery to managing heart attacks and delivering babies.

At any one time it will train 1600 medical, nursing and dental students, and house 400 researchers.

“Medicine and other health sciences have been at the core of what the University of Adelaide has done ... we are very clear, however, that we have got to be responsive and have got to be looking to develop the next generation of health care practitioners,” he said.

“We are not resting on our laurels; we’re ensuring we’re very imaginative with our programs, we’re keeping up with the times and, where possible, ahead of the times.”

Renato Castello

Designer spinning new trend for wool industry

AUSTRALIA’S prosperity once rode on the sheep’s back and John Kellett is designing what he hopes will be a new future for the nation’s wool industry.

The entrepreneur and founder of SA fashion start-up Maatsuyker will this month launch his luxury wool men’s apparel brand selling garments designed and manufactured in Australia from superfine Australian wool.

He said the company was developed to challenge the current market in which overseas manufacturers were taking Australian wool and profiting by making finished garments.

“We (Australia) make 90 per cent of the world’s fine wool apparel but we make zero per cent of the world’s fine apparel,” he said.

“We are trying to rebuild that (wool garment) industry and we’re trying to orient that industry towards the export markets.

“The story of Australian wool is not the failure of wool or marketing but it’s the failure of value adding.”

Maatsuyker was born from a collaborative MBA project at UniSA and was granted a $50,000 in-seed funding this year through the SA Government and UniSA-partnered venture catalyst initiative.

Mr Kellett has been helped through the UniSA’s Innovation and Collaboration Centre, which is a joint venture between the State Government and DXC Technology established in 2015 to support technology-based incubation and business growth in SA and accelerate the creation of new companies and growth of existing firms.

Maatsuyker is headquartered in Adelaide but has a boutique in Prahran, Melbourne, where Mr Kellett has been able to access the necessary designers and pattern makers.

The wool is supplied from a grower in Orange, NSW, who has an equity stake in the company and wanted greater control over the price he was getting for his wool.

“He also has a direct contact with the consumer; we hope in time to extend this to other growers,” Mr Kellett said, adding that historically farmers earned two cents in every dollar from the sale of a wool garment.

The company is investigating innovations such as waterproof wool and has developed a blend of wool cashmere and possum in conjunction with a NZ company.

Mr Kellett said Maatsuyker’s luxury garments are aimed at the export market, particularly in China.

It’s estimated that, by 2021, 50 per cent of luxury consumption will be by Chinese consumers. That doesn’t sound high but, in 2001, it was 1 per cent; that’s a colossal change in a short space of time,” he said.

The Sydney-born businessman said many of Australia’s premium and luxury brands, such as Grange Hermitage, were South Australian and that there was an “opportunity” for the SA garment industry to be part of that.

Renato Castello

Chinese students enlisted in export push

INTERNATIONAL students will be placed as interns with local businesses under an Adelaide University scheme aimed at boosting the state’s exports to China.

Business students will gain valuable work experience while bringing their language and cultural expertise, as well as the knowledge from their courses, to the companies with which they are matched.

The plan is contained in the university’s Investment Opportunities to Advance South Australia document, which outlines a range of new ventures for which the uni is seeking State Government and industry co-investment. Several are designed to benefit small-to-medium-sized SA enterprises.

A $1.25 million investment would launch a pilot intern program for 50 students, ideally next year, with $5000 incentive packages for companies to take part.

It would expand in the second year to 100 students, also from marketing, finance, accounting and wine business courses, to help businesses get “China ready”.

More than 3500 of Adelaide University’s 7500 international students are Chinese.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Pascale Quester said the business community was “absolutely crying out” for such a scheme so the only question was “how fast we can make it happen”.

Students would receive credit for the six-month placements, which would have flexible hours around their studies. And businesses might well choose to hire “a bright graduate that they already know” following the internship, Prof Quester said.

The university is also seeking partnerships to establish:

A RAPID prototyping facility, with in-house expertise in industrial design and engineering, to help device-focused start-ups bring their ideas to fruition and have a physical product to demonstrate to investors.

A FOOD and agribusiness “accelerator” to work with SA businesses to develop new products. Requiring a $10 million investment at the Waite Campus, it would include equipment for the experimental development of baked and steamed goods, cheeses, dried foods, preserved products, pre-prepared meals, pasta and noodles, frozen desserts and fermented products and drinks. New and old businesses alike could trial and test new products at low cost.

A NORTHERN Adelaide Food Corridor Blueprint to turn the area stretching from Adelaide’s market gardens to Port Augusta into a

The uni, State Government and CSIRO would collaborate on technology, sustainability and logistics planning in areas including water and energy efficiency, soil management, food processing and packaging, and waste minimisation and recycling.

AN ADELAIDE Institute for Health Solutions to “tackle the challenges of multi-morbidity”, meaning people with combinations of diseases who are at high risk of hospitalisation and death.

AN AUSTRALIAN Centre for Future Energy Systems tasked with improving the “security, efficiency, and reliability of supply across networks”.

Prof Quester said the projects all aligned with state priorities and the investment document was a “conversation starter”.

“These are the areas where co-investment will deliver the best results,” she said.

“We figure that the State Government will pick some but not others, and we will pursue other avenues for them.

“We want to demonstrate that what we do is eminently relevant.”

Tim Williams

Feeding students a sustainable enterprise

IF JOSH Jarvis has his way, the main Flinders University campus is about to get a whole lot more productive – growing food, that is.

The business student, 25, has grand plans for turning swathes of the Bedford Park campus into a commercial market garden.

He has revived the uni’s permaculture club and re-established a “dormant” half-acre garden at the southern end of the campus as a rare fruit and nut orchard and herb garden.

Now with a range of other stakeholders on board, including uni management and the student association, he is embarking on a major expansion, thanks in part to a grant of $30,000 worth of student services fees.

“In two years’ time, I’d like to see up to an acre and a half under intense cultivation and at least 50 per cent of the current green spaces in the uni geared to edible food production – ‘food forests’ or bush food trails or permaculture orchards,” he said.

The former yiros shop owner, who has a permaculture design qualification and a passion for sustainable food systems, says the social enterprise will have a unique operating model.

A third of the food product will be sold “to cashflow the operation”, with the remaining two-thirds divided among students who tend to the gardens according to how much time they commit, with a minimum of one hour per week.

“It’s meant to be massively reducing the (financial) barriers for accessing this produce,” he said.

On the commercial side, he plans to invest in solar dehydrators for producing dried fruit and herbs, while selling fresh product around campus and eventually to bigger players including Flinders Medical Centre.

“The idea is initially to corner as much of the market as we can, (selling to) the food vendors on campus,” he said, noting campus cafes need “fresh greens’.

Mr Jarvis’ scheme is emblematic of Flinders’ push to embed entrepreneurialism across the board, including via its new partnership with a top US business school for course content in innovation and enterprise.

More than 150 undergrads from a range of disciplines, including Mr Jarvis, took new entrepreneurial subjects this year.

Already embedded in business degrees and available as electives to others, they will become “core topics” in several other degrees next year. And, by 2020, the aim is for every Flinders student to be able to take enterprise subjects within their regular course load.

Head of entrepreneurial programs Bert Verhoeven said Flinders is taking an “experiential approach” to enterprise teaching, ditching the lecture and tutorial format in favour of project-based and “challenge-driven” study.

“They must make mistakes … and try again. It really teaches them to get this growth mindset,” Mr Verhoeven said.

He said new postgrad enterprise qualifications will be launched next year, starting with a highly intensive “turbo version” of a grad certificate that can be completed in eight weeks.

Tim Williams

Thinc-ing ahead

ADELAIDE University is establishing branches of its business incubator ThincLab in Singapore and France to help SA companies get a foothold into the Asian and European export markets.

And its local operation is expanding, too.

Pro Vice-Chancellor Noel Lindsay said the Adelaide ThincLab, hosting about 50 new ventures and more than 100 people, already had a long waiting list after its recent move from Thebarton into the CBD.

He said there were plans for expanding capacity in the city, new branches at the Roseworthy and Waite campuses, and partnering with regional councils for more outside Adelaide.

Launched in the late 1990s, ThincLab has nurtured more than 700 start-ups generating 2000 jobs.

“What we can provide in both our overseas ThincLabs is not only support where SA businesses can be comfortable, but local French and Singaporean managers who can give advice on setting up businesses in those places,” Prof Lindsay said.

Connection with a Singaporean investment firm and help with practical issues such as arranging visas and finding schools were also available, he said.

Prof Lindsay said the Adelaide ThincLab was a “wholistic entrepreneurial centre” where tenants, ranging from hot-desk renters to offices for more established start-ups, worked side-by-side with academics. Entrepreneurial education and mentoring programs, a tech lab with a “maker space” for 3D printing, and expertise in app development and big data projects were on offer too.

Tim Williams

Transforming education

UNISA is setting the ground for a “revolution” in the teaching of teachers with a new education precinct taking shape at its eastern suburbs campus, Vice Chancellor David Lloyd said.

In partnership with the State Government and school representatives, UniSA will not only consolidate its education offerings at the Magill campus 9km from the city centre, but will also support the foundation of birth to Year 12 education on campus, opening up opportunities for best practice teaching and learning.

“This is a project that will transform both the way we educate our teachers and the way in which students learn,” he said of the university’s Magill campus.

“It will be a learning laboratory where pre-service student teachers, pupils, academic staff as well as in-service teachers and leaders will be jointly involved in the creation of highly skilled graduates, professionals and pupils.”

Vice Chancellor Lloyd said until that is built, the university is building a Magill Smart School of three “technologically rich” teaching and learning spaces to cater for primary, middle and senior secondary students.

The building is planned to open early next year with an emphasis on STEM and collaborate inquiry-based learning

“Digital technologies will underpin innovative teaching and learning focused around a STEM curriculum,” he said.

“This curriculum will also draw upon the opportunities afforded by other subjects such as the languages, social sciences and the creative arts.”

He said the university educated more of the state’s teachers than any other university and aimed for “exceptional” graduates who would positively impact the learning and wellbeing of their pupils.

“At the base of all our plans is that teacher education programs should provide strong discipline content knowledge and the pedagogy to teach it,” he said.

“There are a number of exciting new initiatives coming out of our School of Education that are designed to produce teachers and educators with professional knowledge, professional competence, critical reflection, commitment, engagement, professional learning and social justice.”

Among a suite of improvements to its graduate teachers standards is that students completing a Master of Teaching will need to complete a final year performance assessment prior to graduation.

They will need to be able to use data to measure graduate impact on student learning outcomes.

“We’re also designing pathways into the Master of Teaching by attracting Year 12 graduates with the appropriate ATAR to a 3+2 teaching pathway,” he said.

“An example of this might be Bachelor of Human Movement with the Master of Teaching (Secondary) Health and Physical Education or Bachelor of Science with the Master of Teaching (Science).”

Renato Castello

SMART SA SPECIAL REPORTS

#1: The visitor economy: Bringing SA to the world

#2: Defence: The $90bn boost that will transform SA

#3: Innovation: Tonsley, a playground for creative thinkers

#4: Agriculture/aquaculture: DNA tracking protects our produce

#5: Health: Game-changing research into serious diseases

#6: Resources: Mining for modern technology

#7: Education: Universities unite on life-saving research