Australia Opens R&D Centre to Study Operations in Hazardous Environments

The Australian Defence Force’s ability to operate safely in hazardous environments is being enhanced with a new national research and innovation centre opened in Melbourne dedicated to solving Operating in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Environments (OCE) problems.

The Centre for Advance Defence Research and Enterprise – OCE (CADRE-OCE), based at the University of Melbourne, was officially opened May 19.

Bringing together the best academic and industry organisations, the CADRE-OCE will develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies to protect military personnel, first responders and civilians, Australia’s defence ministry said in an official release.

Chief Defence Scientist, Professor Tanya Monro, said CADRE-OCE would mobilise the national science, technology and innovation ecosystem around challenges of scale.

Under the Defence Science Partnership Deed, the Commonwealth has signed a CADRE-OCE partnership agreement with the University of Melbourne who will lead in close partnership with the University of Adelaide, Queensland University of Technology and the University of New South Wales.

A further eight academic institutions and 34 industry partners from multiple sectors will support CADRE-OCE.

Professor Jia-Yee Lee, Director CADRE-OCE, said that members would collaborate based on their individual strengths and create cross-functional teams to achieve targeted outcomes.

“We will join together key elements of the innovation life cycle, from laboratory experiments, to prototypes, to productisation and finally translating to Defence end-user capability,” Professor Lee said.

CADRE-OCE is funded for $4.25 million over the next five years and will work in close collaboration with the OCE Science, Technology and Research (STaR) Shot, which has been established by Defence to tackle OCE challenges.