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Phil Polglase, Kate Carnell, Gordon Duff and Don
White enjoy the Annual Science Meeting dinner
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Members of the Program Three (Harvesting and Operations) team
looking forward to the Annual Science Meeting dinner
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The CRC's annual science meeting was held at the Grand
Chancellor in Launceston Tasmania at the end of 2008. The meeting
was our biggest yet, with over 170 attendees from all over
Australia representing our industry partners and researcher
providers, as well as our postgraduate students. The meeting
provided a fabulous opportunity to get all of our stakeholders
together to discuss our research efforts to date, pathways to
adoption of the research, and areas where future research will
focus.
Most of our partners would be aware that the CRC for Forestry
underwent a mid-term (third-year) review at the end of 2008 which
was held in conjunction with the CRC's annual science meeting.
All CRCs undergo these reviews, which provide a report to the
CRC Board, who then consider the report and prepare a response. The
final report and response are then provided to the Department of
Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR).
Our review was carried out by an independent and distinguished
panel consisting of Dr Nuno Borralho and Professor Geoff Wilson,
and chaired by Professor Roger Sands.
Professor Sands was until recently Professor and Head of the New
Zealand School of Forestry at the University of Canterbury, and
previously served as Head of School of Melbourne University's
School of Forestry, and was Campus Director at Creswick. He has
extensive international experience in a variety of forestry-related
work including silviculture, physiology and sustainable forest
management.
Dr Borralho is a forestry consultant with an excellent
international reputation and considerable knowledge of tree
breeding and genetics. He recently served as Director, RAIZ Forest
and Paper Research Institute, Portugal and has worked in both
industry and academia.
Professor Wilson is a highly credentialled research and
education leader with detailed knowledge of the CRC program and the
Australian research and development landscape, who served as a
member of the Commonwealth’s CRC Committee between 2003 and
2008. He is also a former vice-chancellor of Central Queensland
University and Deakin University. A couple of observers from
DIISR also attended for much of the time.
The work of the third-year review panel was supported by the
CRC’s own standing Research Advisory Panel (RAP), chaired by
the CRC’s Visitor Dr Glen Kile and consisting of Dr David
Whitehead, Dr Steve Verryn, Professor Loren Kellogg and Dr
Sadanandan Nambiar. This group of 'critical friends' provides
regular and ongoing feedback to the CRC on our research portfolio
and performance.
The RAP conducted a detailed review of the research elements of
each of the CRC’s programs, considering issues such as
science quality and benchmarking, national and international
leadership and collaboration, feasibility and adequacy of resources
for projects, pathways to adoption and the overall balance of
research and research training activities. The RAP report was
provided to the third-year review panel, and also to the
CRC’s Board and management team. Program-specific components
of the report are also being considered by the four program
coordinating committees.
Between them, both groups of reviewers left no stone unturned
and all aspects of the CRC were subjected to a thorough, but
constructive, scrutiny. Board, CEO, managers, researchers, industry
participants, students and a variety of other stakeholder groups
were interviewed by the panel, who were also provided with a small
mountain of supporting documentation.
We weren’t kept waiting too long to discover that all our
preparation had paid off, and the preliminary, informal feedback to
the Board and the CRC senior managers was overwhelmingly
positive.
The review contained praise for all core areas of the
CRC’s operation: outcome-focused research and high-quality
science, adoption and communication, research training, governance
and management. The report states:
“The CRCF is well on target to deliver the expected
outcomes, according to the plans, despite some delays in a number
of projects. There was strong involvement and agreement between
research providers and industry partners on the best way to develop
and deploy research results and this is a huge strength of the
Centre.”
“Strategies to communicate the research … are very
effective as well as the ability to pass on to the public the image
of a responsible, credible, independent and competent
CRC.”
“The research programs generally are of high quality with
some research being excellent by the highest international
standards.”
“The CRCF has high-calibre postgraduate students and
high-quality broadly based supervision spanning different research
providers and including industry. The multi-disciplinary diversity
of team supervision was acknowledged by both students and
supervisors to be a particular strength of the CRCF.”
“… there is an effective and highly focussed Board
and CEO. The management structure and management staff are also
effective and well supported by an appropriate committee structure,
including the main committees of the Board.”
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Sadanandan Nambiar wrapping up the presentation
by the Research Advisory Panel at the Annual Science Meeting
2008
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In conclusion, the report stated:
“The Review Panel was impressed by the quality of research
being performed by the CRCF, the management structure underpinning
this and the degree of interaction with end-users. The CRCF is
performing extremely well and certainly justifies the investment
made by the Commonwealth. The Panel does not recommend any major
changes.”
The twelve recommendations from the panel were considered
by the Board on 11 February, followed by a planning workshop
including the CRC’s senior managers to consider resulting
actions in detail. This took place on 3-4 March. The Board will be
considering a draft response out of session and the final response
will be presented to DIISR, together with the review report, by the
end of March. The report and response will also be posted on the
CRC website.
