Conference Day One: Tuesday, 9 April 2019
9:00 am - 9:20 am Coffee and Registration
9:20 am - 9:30 am Conference Opening
9:30 am - 10:00 am CASE STUDY: Improving the Effective Use of Resources with Centralised Services and Facilities through New Training Modules
The Services and Facilities at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), Dresden, Germany offer centralised research support within the Institute ensuring state-of-the-art equipment and expertise. They set a quality standard for the application of technologies including the accurate interpretation and representation of data.
The Dresden Model has had a remarkablepositive impact on success and productivity of the Institute as a whole. But after more than a decade of success it is time to look into what must be done to safeguard that achievement for the decade to come.
In this session, we take a look at Max Planck Institute’s new strategic viewpoints on how we have started to tacklethe challengeof the next decade. This includes, among others;
- Implementing gross-training of staff between facilities, including thedevelopment of training modules and programs based on individual skill sets
- Establishing workflows and pipelines that cross multiplefacilities
- Offering technology consultation to researchers to define the equipment and service needs
10:00 am - 10:30 am University of New England Case Study – A Science Precinct Masterplan
Deciding when it is time to renovate and when it is time for a new build is crucial when developing campus master planning. The UNE Science Schools faced issues of aging buildings and infrastructure, duplication of non-shared spaces and a lack of collaboration, which required a new focus for one of Australia’s great teaching, training and research universities.
The Masterplan for the UNE Science Precinct enables and drives excellence in research and teaching in the areas of agriculture, the fundamental sciences, and the life and environmental sciences, by creating a precinct which optimises efficiency and collaboration. This was achieved by providing centralised research, teaching, staff and storage facilities resulting in a program for campus demolition, the adaptive reuse of existing buildings, and new laboratory infrastructure.
This session will:
- Identify the processes adopted to determine the current issues, and need for future Teaching and Research
- Identify the strategic decisions for planning the location of all Science disciplines, and corresponding strategy for existing/new infrastructure
- Outline the potential of centralisation of teaching & research, pure research and storage (temperature controlled and general) facilities.
10:30 am - 11:00 am Speed Networking
An effective structured interactivesession designed to help expand your network through one-to-one focused conversations. Bring your business cards!
11:00 am - 11:30 am Morning Tea
11:30 am - 12:10 pm CASE STUDY: Reflecting and Assessing the Impact of Design from Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC) on Research Output
A game-changing new research centre, led by Murdoch University, promises to transform the treatment of disease and improve the health of millions of people in Western Australia and beyond.
World-leading phenomics research at the Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC) is set to revolutionise the diagnosis, prevention and precision treatment of a multitude of medical conditions including cancers, obesity, autism, dementia and type 2 diabetes in individuals and, on a larger scale, across communities. Its benefits are not limited to human health, but can also be used to unlock new discoveries in areas such as animal health and agriculture.
A person’s phenome is a snapshot of their unique biology resulting from the complex interactions between environmental factors such as their diet, lifestyle and exposure to pollutants, and their genes. Analysing these biological “fingerprints” helps researchers better understand the underlying causes of disease and to develop personalised treatments to prevent and treat it.
The ANPC is to be based at the Harry Perkins Institute (South) and will have the largest collection of mass spectrometers in the Southern Hemisphere.
It is designed to match technologies with other phenome centres in Singapore, Hong Kong, Birmingham and London. The data collaboratively produced will help researchers understand population health trends, and identify subtle environmental or cultural variations that influence disease susceptibility and recovery.
Supported by the State Government and the Australian Research Council, the centre is a core platform of the Western Australian Health Translation Network (WAHTN), which brings together expertise from all Western Australian universities, major hospitals, medical research institutes and partners. These include the Telethon Kids Institute, the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Perth and the EPICentre at the University of New South Wales.
This large collection of mass spectrometers presents a number of challenges including noise, heat, weight, and access. The design team is working closely with instrument manufacturers such as Bruker and Waters to introduce innovative measures to address these challenges.
12:10 pm - 12:50 pm Enhancing Operational Efficiency through Implementing a Centralised Management System
This presentation will focus on how the Australian National Imaging Facility (NIF) has implemented new strategies to improve national operation. Established in 2007, NIF is a National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) capability that provides open access to state-of-the-art imaging instruments and highly-specialised expertisefor the imaging of humans, animals, plants, and materials. The presentation will highlight the operational challenges faced within the national capability and how they would impact the capability’s commitment to research community and funders.
- Understand the Centralised Management System and what it means to highperformance research facility
- Apply strategies used to plan for flexibility and adaptability in convergent research laboratories.
- Learn how the system benefits researchers by capturing impact of research output and collecting data on their activity for future references
12:50 pm - 1:50 pm Lunch break
1:50 pm - 2:30 pm CASE STUDY: Maximising the Potential of the Changing Landscape of University Campus Planning
Space optimisation and efficient use of a limited budget is a proven challenge for institutions everywhere. The rise of technology has led to the development of using data to help tackle this issue. Data- Driven Design is an emerging methodology by HDR that connects the built environment to predictive analytics and operational design through computational design. HDR helps to unlock the power of data to inform planning and growth projections. They integrate computational design, data analytics and operations design to assist in ‘smarter’ master planning. In this session, we take a look at:
- Utilising data to plan for growth through understanding existing assets, planning objectives and growth
- Identifying planning priorities based on future growth
- Understanding the colocation of researchers based on research output to assist in driving collaboration
- Harnessing utilisation to “real-time” test and plan for usage and growth to allow improved management of capital budgets
2:30 pm - 3:10 pm Integrating Sports Science Laboratories in an Elite and Community Sports Precinct to Enhance Research Collaboration
This session will explore La Trobe University’s new sport science facility due for complete construction at the end of 2019. Prompted by the need for increasing campus connectivity, student amenities, public access and to facilitate increased research collaborations, the sport science laboratories will be located in the middle of an integrated elite and community sport precinct. It will provide space for teaching and research for exercise physiology, biomechanics, data analytics, as well as strength and conditioning. In this session, gain insight into:
- The technical design of the facility to promote multi-mode use and finding a balance between research and communal areas
- Approaches to stakeholder management and satisfying multiple user group expectations,
- Metrics that will be used to measure research outcomes, student experience, and collaboration with commercial partners in the sport industry.
3:10 pm - 3:30 pm Afternoon Tea
3:30 pm - 4:10 pm Cancer Research Institute Development Project Achieving LEED Gold Star Standards in Sustainable Architecture
The $250m UniSA Cancer Research Institute stands as the gateway to Adelaide’s world-class Biomedical Precinct. The 16 level research facility features an iconic precast concrete façade that references the original precast in the neighbouring UniSA campus, and it has a unique organic footprint that responds to some particularly complex site constraints including:
- A future underground railway below the building
- A public roadway that passes below the building
- A major sewer and stormwater easement that could not be diverted around the building
- A live railway within 15m
- A live dual lane vehicular traffic bridge to link with at higher levels, and
- A sloping site
In this session, Mark and Christina will share the importance of a collaborative design approach and how a structural engineer’s role is critical to defining the shape and functionality of a research facility from day one. With a vibration sensitive animal house, multiple levels of wet and dry research labs, large interconnecting atriums and collaboration spaces, science galleries, and retail tenancies the structure performance of the UniSA Cancer Research Institute was critical to the success of the project, including:
- Vibration
- Wind
- Earthquake
- Rail Impact
- Deflection
- Thermal, and
- Acoustic Performance
Christina Coleiro
Senior Project Manager, Cancer Research InstituteUniversity of South Australia
4:10 pm - 4:50 pm Next Generation “Super Lab” – What are the Key Characteristics?
“Plan for the future”. “Design for the Users”. “Invest in Sustainability”. – The mindset of today’s facilities and laboratory development have been established over decades of lessons learned frombuildings lacking the flexibility to adapt to rapid technological and research advances. With the convergence of research disciplines and playing a key role in transforming lab environments, it is affecting workflow, interaction, research approaches, support spaces, equipment demands and more. In this panel discussion will takea look at:
- Key characteristics of a ‘super lab’ and how to efficiently manage the transition fromtraditional to modern workflow standards
- Setting metrics to optimise shared working environments, from lab benches to work spaces
- Features to increase wellbeing of users and attract new membership