Outstanding research celebrated at Collaborate | Innovate | 2013

Innovations from dairy farming, mallee tree harvesting and tools for detection of hearing loss were among the winners at the Excellence in Innovation Awards dinner at the Cooperative Research Centres Association’s annual conference on Thursday 16 May.

The CEO of the CRC Association, Tony Peacock said “the judges were impressed by the high quality of entries for this year’s Awards and were delighted at the breadth of innovation that continues to be delivered by the CRC Program”.

The CRC Association Awards for Excellence in Innovation celebrate collaborative research that makes a difference to our society. Three awards were made in the Innovation in Research category.

Dairy Futures CRC has delivered game-changing genomic technology to the dairy industry through a massive collaboration involving the entire dairy industry supply chain.

Future Farm Industries CRC recognised the cost of harvesting trees was a major impediment to developing a viable industry based on farm trees, so the CRC and Biosystems Engineering developed a mallee harvester to overcome this impediment.

Based on evidence from the HEARing CRC’s long-term outcomes studies, HEARLab® has been developed to deliver new tools for detection and better remediation of hearing loss in infants, young children and in the elderly.

Two awards were made in the Innovation in Education or Outreach category, sponsored by Westpac.

The Invasive Animals CRC developed a PestSmart Toolkit and organised and delivered the National PestSmart Roadshow, involving regional, state and national events, factsheets, case studies, guides, videos and technical reports.

The Australian Feral Camel Management Project was established to reduce the environmental damage being caused by 750,000 feral camels across central Australia. The project, managed by Ninti One Limited, created skills, jobs and services in Aboriginal communities in two key areas: the supply of camel meat to niche markets and the environmental monitoring of remote waterholes.

A highlight of the dinner was the winner of Showcasing Early Career Researchers 2013, sponsored by CSIRO. Caroline Le from Cancer Therapeutics CRC impressed the delegates with her lively presentation of her research into the effects of stress on cancer, winning $6000.

The Excellence in Innovation Awards dinner was sponsored by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education.

Media contacts:

Jen Bladon-Clark, Dairy Futures CRC, 0421 708 309

Peter Zurzolo, Future Farm Industries CRC, 0458 099 040

Jane Sewell, The HEARing CRC, 03 9035 5351

Glenn Conroy, Invasive Animals CRC, 0406 376 648

Linda Cooper, Ninti One Limited, 0419 331 119

Caroline Le, Monash University, 0400 588 030

Tony Peacock,CRC Association, 0402 036 110

 

For more information on all winners and shortlisted entries visit http://crca.asn.au/annualconference/excellence-in-innovation-awards/excellence-in-innovation-awards-2013/

 

eWater Model for urban stormwater improvement conceptualisation

Managing water for towns, cities and the environment

MUSIC (model for urban stormwater improvement conceptualisation) is eWater’s urban water software designed to help urban stormwater professionals evaluate strategies to tackle urban stormwater flows and pollution impacts. It is an easy to use modelling tool for both simple and highly complex urban stormwater systems using water sensitive urban design. It can simulate urban stormwater systems ranging in scale from a suburban block up to a whole suburb or town.

Since MUSIC was first developed in 2001 by the CRC for Catchment Hydrology (later eWater CRC), the software has been used by thousands of professionals throughout Australia, helping efforts to reduce pollution in streams, rivers, and receiving waters. It now has more than 5000 users around the world. eWater commercialised the market leading MUSIC software to support the ongoing development and maintenance of the software.

The eWater CRC also developed Australia’s first national river basin scale modelling system, eWater Source. Source is now being adopted nationally as an enterprise modelling platform for integrated water management. Source can be used in planning and operations modes for river management and has been developed to address water sharing and savings for entire river and connected groundwater systems. It offers important new features and capabilities dealing with water reform, climate change and environmental water. Source can also be used for urban water supply management at the town, city, and regional scale. It can assess a full range of supply and reuse options including desalination. This allows users to incorporate towns and cities into water management models for river systems.

eWater moved out of the CRC program in mid 2012 to become a not-for profit, membership based organisation. It continues to support its software products and the professional development of water professionals in best practice modelling for water management.

http://www.ewater.com.au/products/ewater-toolkit/urban-tools/music/

20 years of CRC achievement in water management

http://issuu.com/ewater/docs/crcbook20years?mode=window&viewMode=doublePage

Cochlear's Hybrid System

Hearing better with Cochlear’s Hybrid System

The Cochlear™ Hybrid™ System, released by member organisation Cochlear, was made possible by collaborative research carried out by the HEARing CRC, and opens up cochlear implant technology to a new group of potential recipients who do not receive sufficient benefit from conventional hearing aids. It is the world’s first implantable system that can fully integrate acoustic signals (from a hearing aid) with electrical signals (from a cochlear implant) to address the challenge of partial hearing loss.

The Cochlear Hybrid System builds on Cochlear’s existing state-of-the-art cochlear implant technology, which has restored hearing to over 140,000 hearing impaired adults and children worldwide. The new Hybrid system delivers an integrated solution for a group of patients who could not previously benefit from cochlear implantation, estimated at more than 70,000 in Australia alone.

“The cochlear implant is one of biomedical engineering’s most amazing technological feats. It is one of the few implantable medical devices that truly integrates with the user’s own nervous system in order to restore hearing ability,” said CEO A/Prof Robert Cowan.

“The HEARing CRC worked closely with Cochlear on biosafety and surgical studies to develop the Hybrid electrode concept and subsequent clinical trials,” continued A/Prof Cowan. “We have successfully shown that the new Hybrid electrode array can preserve the recipient’s existing low frequency hearing, while effectively replacing their lost high frequency hearing with electrical signals.”

To date the number of recipients of the Cochlear Hybrid System is more than 500. The technology has be rolled out internationally except in the United States of America, where it is in clinical trial, and China.

Reproduced from the HEARing CRC www.hearingcrc.org/communications/news/excellence-innovation-award

Further information can be found on Cochlear’s site at: www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/au/home/discover