The SIRH launch event highlighted the goals, updates, and achievements of researchers and their projects in their first annual celebration.
The event began at the Global Change Institute at UQ, where directors Dr Cristyn Meath and Dr Jurij Karlovsek welcomed everyone and introduced the year's successes. They emphasised the hub's achievements and its focus on accelerating digital and circular transitions as well as decarbonisation. They highlighted the SIRH's role in promoting innovative collaboration between industry, government, and academia to drive a shared vision.
Following this, team members presented the various projects of the SIRH covering a variety of critical infrastructure industries. These presentations highlighted the constructive collaboration between academia and industry professionals in supporting the hub's vision. Topics included workforce and skills for sustainability and digital transitions, climate resilient water infrastructure, port and transport decarbonisation, perceptions in innovative timber products, a user-centric systems supply chain model for sustainability and finally collaborations between Colombia, Australia, Germany, the UK, India and China.
A key highlight of the event was an update on the award winning Infrastructure CoLab, where progress from industry teams were shared. Teams showcased the value of cross-sector collaboration in producing both tangible and abstract solutions through digital and design deliverables with both ARUP and KBR presenting their solutions to date. In addition to these practical outcomes, the SIRH is in the process of undertaking a longitudinal study evaluating the effectiveness of the ICL model to support industries to transition to net zero and circular economy. Observations from the first year of the initiative identified three crucial factors: involving the right people, ensuring effective industry-government communication, and the ability to foster innovation through appropriate design methodology.
recaping SIRH's wins for the year.
One of the event's highlights was the unveiling of the Hydrogen Supply Chain tool, a first-of-its-kind resource supporting the co-evaluation and policy development of the hydrogen industry across the supply chain. This tool allows users to create simulations through a user friendly interface to visualise how hydrogen can be supplied, produced, and managed. Multiple supply chains can be included and compared, enabling users to run scenarios on hydrogen usage, water footprints, and carbon footprints, and supply chain configuration comparisons.
The SIRH event showcased the research group's remarkable outcomes in only eighteen months, focusing on collaboration, research excellence, and real-world impact. In conjunction with the Infrastructure Co-Lab the SIRH will continue fostering new research and innovation towards a more sustainable future in the infrastructure industry.
