12 December 2008
Monash University has today received $89.9 million from the Federal Government's Education Investment Fund (EIF) to create a new platform for excellence in Future Manufacturing research and teaching.
This initiative, known as New Horizons, will co-locate and integrate around 300 staff from Monash with about 150 from CSIRO, supported by platforms for global research and teaching collaboration through state-of-the-art ICT. It will be located at the northern edge of the Clayton campus of Monash, immediately adjacent to CSIRO.
The co-location of Monash, Australia's largest University, and CSIRO, Australia's largest publicallly funded research organisation, will create globally significant scale, scope and connectedness in an interactive space with an entrepreneurial culture that will facilitate greater linkages with business and the community. It also allows for the efficient use of major facilities already located in the Precinct such as the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy, the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute.
This investment of Government funds, together with a substantial matching contribution from Monash University and CSIRO, will establish the Clayton Innovation Precinct as the most significant technology innovation hub in the southern hemisphere, at the heart of Victoria's primary high-technology (light) manufacturing region.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Larkins welcomed the announcement saying it was an important step towards establishing a new multi-discipline research themed model at Monash University.
"New Horizons will unite dispersed science and engineering expertise in a new, world-class research facility," Professor Larkins said.
"It will produce a new generation of leaders ready to make an impact in the workplace. It will harness new paradigms for learning and research across Monash sites in Australia, Malaysia and India, and its collaboration partners around the world."
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Edwina Cornish said the centre would focus on the research challenges facing future generations.
"New Horizons will act as a platform for future manufacturing by scaling-up skills and infrastructure in science and engineering, with a specific focus on computational and physical modeling of manufactured products and services in the fields of bio-medicine, aerospace and renewable energy," Professor Cornish said.
"Expected outcomes will include smarter and cleaner manufacturing, streamlined commercialisation, international e-learning linkages and highly skilled graduates prepared for a multi-disciplinary innovative workplace.
"The new generation of leaders that will graduate from New Horizons will be unique in receiving an undergraduate and/or postgraduate education that is multidisciplinary, globally connected, enabled by the latest ICT facilities, steeped in innovation and entrepreneurship, and underpinned by a productive engagement with industry," Professor Cornish said.
Detailed design for this major construction project will commence immediately, with construction starting in 2010 and occupancy occurring in 2012. | 
