In May 2013, POF sponsored the Cooperative Research Centres Association (CRCA). POF Partner Ray Evans and Associate Ed Patterson attended the annual conference, which was held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. They were joined by Mark Wickham and Mark Williams at the welcome lunch and by Andrew Massie and Ross McFarlane for the CRCA Excellence in Innovation Awards Dinner.
The CRCA is a networking event for industry professionals from a broad range of industries including engineering, legal, accounting, government, academic, IT and medicine to name a few. There were approximately 500 attendees, the majority of which were experts in their field.
This conference was well attended from different CRCs, as well as people looking to establish a new CRC. The conference introduced a number of technical papers from a high standard of PhD students with qualifications in biotechnology, chemistry and agricultural sciences to name a few. The CRC program is unique in that it brings together the best technical brains from various universities and the CSIRO, and effectively matches these skills with the particular problems the industries face, as well as developing new products.
The awards dinner on Thursday 16 May was attended by POF professionals Ray Evans, Ed Patterson, Ross McFarlane, Andrew Massie, Mark Wickham and Mark Williams, and announced exceptional contributions to CRCs. Ray Evans also moderated Friday morning’s discussion, ‘How to Win a CRC (or Not) Breakfast’, which was well-attended despite beginning at 7am after the awards dinner on Thursday!
POF is proud to be a long-standing supporter of the CRCA.