From the President

Welcome to the September 2021 edition of Materials Australia. It feels as though I only just wrote one of these messages, and yet so much has changed in the past three months—again. In my last President’s Message, I discussed the topic of resilience and what that might mean to our businesses, the institutions for which many of our members work, and also to Materials Australia. Now, more than ever, it is clear that our resilience gives us the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Resilience embeds an ability to help us navigate volatility, respond to uncertainty and mitigate risk, recover from adversity, and reimagine the unexpected. I was recently reading some of Louis Pasteur's career history, which included quotes attributed to the great scientist during his times of adversity. Notably, early in his career, Pasteur submitted two theses as a graduate student (Chemistry and Physics), following on from his research in crystallography. His contributions to crystallography and the discoveries made were, at the time and in the years that followed, considered to be his most significant and original contributions to science. Pasteur was admitted to the French Academy of Sciences in 1862 for contributions to mineralogy. Beyond that time, he made incredible advances in scientific knowledge, and his discoveries related to microbiology, immunology and vaccination (including vaccines for rabies and anthrax in the late 1870s and 1880s) are as important today as ever. Additionally, when you are next able to raise a glass of wine or beer with colleagues and friends, remember the fact that Louis Pasteur first published the scientific understanding of alcoholic fermentation in 1858, and then in 1865, patented the means of how pasteurisation could be applied to beer, wine and milk. I would therefore like to focus on one of the most important quotes attributed to Louis Pasteur who many consider the founder of modern innovation. This quotation of course is that “fortune favours the prepared mind”. Understanding what constitutes invention and innovation is so much of what we strive to achieve, and the philosophy that we hope to instil in those we work with, and who we inspire. Perceptions of what constitutes invention or an innovative approach to materials and manufacturing are especially subjective and not always well understood by many professionals, particularly as they relate to established industries. In reality, a failure to recognise innovation, and properly capture it may lead to loss of business and intellectual property. This is true, not only of inventors of new technology, but also of the potential customers who can benefit from it. We often hear press releases or media discussing the latest digital advances, but these are not always a great fit for many manufacturing businesses, including those associated with advanced materials, where core activities are somewhat different and where there is an overwhelming priority to produce positive revenue streams and business growth. However, it is also clear that without innovation, businesses cannot increase profits, decrease overheads, or develop new products in the marketplace. Innovation doesn’t necessarily have to involve a new discovery, a new material or a new manufacturing technique. But, it may involve a new philosophy, and it does have to produce an outcome that can be commercialised and marketed successfully. Finding the link between invention and the marketplace is then in itself a major opportunity for our materials and manufacturing industries and research initiatives. I make particular note of this because we are heading into grant writing season for ARC Discovery Projects, Linkage Projects, Linkage Industrial Transformation Training Centres, Industrial Transformation Research Hubs, and Centres of Excellence.

I believe the opportunities for what we do in the materials industries and research communities is especially promising right now. I look forward to hearing about the successful outcomes for those of our community, which will be announced over the next three to six months.

Next, as you likely have already seen, Materials Australia has a new logo. This will help us develop and build a strong brand, and maintain a forward facing outlook in our role as the trusted voice of the materials science and engineering community. Finally, I would like to make a note about conferences that were planned for 2021. These conferences have been postponed until 2022, with more details to follow. We are planning to run CAMS in February 2022, which has so far received a very good set of abstracts. I would encourage anyone who has not yet submitted an abstract to do so as soon as possible, to ensure inclusion in the conference.

Looking to the future, we have an outstanding set of conferences planned for 2022. This includes APICAM and LMT 2022, which are expected to run in the middle of next year, notwithstanding restrictions on movement.

At this time, I would also like to wish everyone the best of health as we head towards the end of the year. I hope that I will be able to talk to many of you soon at one of the planned Materials Australia events.

Best Regards Roger Lumley National President Materials Australia