Up & Coming Geoscientists - a sample of our AIG Honours Bursary Recipients

Industry – Academic Research Projects
Industry –
Academic
Research
Projects: The
Good, The Bad
and The Ugly
© ingimage.com
Richard Lilly
Mount Isa Mines Embedded Research Fellow, University of Adelaide
Industry-Academic research projects should
be a win-win; the company gets access to
a knowledgeable specialist team who are
able to dedicate valuable time and resources
to a range of geological questions, and the
academics get funding to generate new data
and progress their research careers. As a
bonus, any students involved get invaluable
hands-on industry experience. What could go
wrong? Why are there not more collaborative
projects happening all the time? What can we
do to make these projects work?
Over the last 15 years I have been fortunate
to have been involved in over 25 collaborative
research projects with 6 different companies
and 8 research institutions on projects all
around the world including Australia, Sweden,
Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Most have been good, some have been bad
and a couple have been ugly. The following
is a personal viewpoint from someone who
is still very passionate about trying to use
applied research to assist the full spectrum
of economic geology from exploration to
production.
Getting past stereotypes
Being an industry-academic research-fellow/
liaison is certainly not an easy job; after years
in exploration I don’t think I grasped how
many hours academics actually work. There
is no clock-on and clock-off; it’s certainly a
lifestyle rather than a job. I also quickly found
out that academics have completely different
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and that
the success of a research project is not
measured in metres drilled, tonnes hoisted
or targets tested (although it would be nice if
that was the end-result of some research!).
In fact, in the first few months of my current
role, rather than feel like an industry-academic
boundary-spanner, it was like I was slipping
through the crack between both worlds. This
made me wonder: is this why there are so
few embedded researchers? Is the role itself
doomed to sit in neither camp? Why is this?
One of the most consistent barriers for
effective industry-academic research projects
is stereotyping. Ask just about anyone in the
industry about academics and you will be
treated to tales of boffins and their projects
that become ‘too academic to be useful’, and
academics who are ’only thinking about where
their next research grant is coming from’. Or
(as happened to me last year) when at the end
of a research project meeting the industry geo
says: ‘Right, I’d better get on with some real
work now’. This example clearly demonstrates
the lack of value that industry often places on
geological knowledge and understanding.
However, stereotyping works both ways and
I have heard frustrations from the academic
side of the fence referring to their industry
partners’ ‘short-term goals’ and the recipients
of the research who ‘don’t understand the
results’ and ‘probably won’t read it anyway’.
The high turnover of staff during the boom
years is also a hindrance; it is common for
the company geo who initiated the research
project to have moved on by the time the
research has been completed. Likewise,
industry priorities change with the market and
a three year study may find itself high and dry
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AIG NEWS Issue 123 · February 2016