Media release: 27 June, 2008
27 Jun 2008 | Nick Hartgerink
Innovation Campus start of a new era
NSW Premier Morris Iemma today opened the first building on the University of Wollongong’s $500 million Innovation Campus (iC), in what UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerard Sutton describes as the start of a new era for the Illawarra region.
iC Central is a spectacular steel and glass design that will form the central services and administration hub for the research and development campus that the University is developing with joint venture partners Baulderstone Hornibrook on a beachside location just north of the Wollongong CBD.
iC Central will provide office and meeting space as well as cafes, retail space, recreation and health facilities, and function rooms. It will be occupied by iC administration and commercial tenants.
Professor Sutton says the Innovation Campus will make a major contribution to the regional economy, expanding UOW’s already considerable economic contribution.
“The Innovation Campus represents an eventual investment in excess of $500 million which gives the region a vital stake in the knowledge-based industries that can underpin our economy in the 21st century,” said Professor Sutton. “It will complement the coal, steel and other manufacturing industries that have been the region’s economic foundations for so long.
“The new campus gives innovative companies the opportunity to work alongside and collaborate with some of the University of Wollongong’s key research institutes.”
Professor Sutton said the three levels of government – state, federal and local – had worked cooperatively to support UOW in establishing the Innovation Campus. The NSW and Commonwealth Governments had also made significant financial contributions.
Three other major buildings are under construction on the Campus, which will eventually have around 25 buildings and employ up to 4000 people – making it one of the Illawarra’s most significant developments in decades.
The Institute for Innovative Materials will be ready within months. It will house two of UOW’s flagship research teams – the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute incorporating the Australian Centre for Excellence in Electromaterials Science, and the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials.
The Federal Government has provided $12 million for a third building under construction to house the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (CTCP), the Centre for Maritime Policy and the Centre for Comparative Law and Development Studies in Asia Pacific. All three centres have strong links with governments and agencies throughout the Asia-Pacific region, in training, research and consultancy services. That building should be complete in early 2009.
The fourth building currently under construction will house the University’s Business School and a joint TAFE/UOW Digital Media Centre for graphic design and audio-visual training and development.
The University has been holding promising discussions with potential commercial partners regarding further development on the Innovation Campus.
The iC Masterplan allows for a staged development that will eventually provide:
• 84,000 square metres for research, training and office space
• 5,000 square metres for retail and service facilities
• a hotel and conference centre
• 18,000 square metres for residential accommodation
And while the University has shown its commitment to the research component of the Innovation Campus by moving its two flagship research institutes there, Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerard Sutton believes access to the University’s graduates may be just as big an incentive for companies to locate there.
“The University of Wollongong has had the highest employment rate for graduates of any university in the country for the past six years, so we must be doing something right,” Professor Sutton said.
“We are finding the companies are interested in establishing a presence at the Innovation Campus for a number of reasons. They want a general link with the UOW because of our reputation in research and teaching, they have a special interest in one or more of the spread of quality research being carried out at the university and know our track record with research institutes that have a very low staff turnover, and they want to snare our best graduates,” he said.
“Attracting and retaining quality staff is very important in this global situation of skills shortages,” Professor Sutton said. “By linking with our research teams and Faculties, companies have the opportunity to employ the best graduates because they have interacted with the students during their courses. We have found companies want to be positioned at the end of our food chain, to offer jobs to our best students as they graduate.”
Contact: Nick Hartgerink (UOW Media Unit) 0418 424085
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