The QUT Design Robotics team has won the Industry Engagement Award in the 2022 Australian Financial Review Higher Education Awards, while the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) was a finalist in the Employability category.
The Design Robotics team’s transforming Australian manufacturing program was recognised for collaborating between higher education and industry partners, and for creating a ground-breaking model of translating design and robotics research into advancing manufacturing processes.
The project brought QUT’s key strengths in robotics and design together.
Associate Professor Jared Donovan from QUT Design Lab said the design-led collaborative research approach was crucial to the success of the project, and he was pleased to see the industry engagement recognised.
“By establishing the Design Robotics Open Innovation Network we worked with artists, architects, and designers to apply learnings from the design robotics project into the ongoing commercial projects of UAP and document the outcomes so others could learn from them,” Associate Professor Donovan said.
“We have presented project outcomes in industry seminars and exhibited nationally and internationally, ensuring access for a wide range of potential user groups to the outcomes of the research.”
The collaborative partnerships forged in the Design Robotics project have carried on into the establishment of the award-winning Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Hub, co-founded by QUT, UAP, and the Queensland Government, and in the Australian Cobotics Centre, funded by the ARC’s Industrial Transformation Training Program.
Within these organisations, Design Robotics researchers continue their work designing robotic technologies for the needs of Australian manufacturers.
The SMIF, developed by the Faculty of Business and Laws’ Professor Anup Basu, is a set of two courses within the undergraduate finance program in which students manage a portfolio of real money by making investments in Australian stocks, bonds and other assets.
Professor Basu said SMIF students learnt by making decisions with real consequences and evaluating the outcomes of those decisions in real time.
“The aim of the SMIF is to produce highly employable finance graduates who would become future leaders in the investment management profession,” Professor Basu said.
“SMIF graduates have been recruited by highly sought-after organisations including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, QIC, National Australia Bank, Deloitte, KPMG, Morgans, Hyperion, Moody’s, and Cambridge Associates.”
Former QUT Vice-Chancellor, Emeritus Professor Peter Coaldrake AO, was awarded the Education Lifetime Achievement Award for his singular contribution to the higher education sector.
Main image: The Design Robotics Australian manufacturing team
Media contact:
Sally Dillon, QUT Media, 07 3138 8666, s.dillon@qut.edu.au
After hours: media@qut.edu.au