Lab joins key Australian research initiative

 

Published by the Communications and Development Department

 

8 September 2003

 

A new and highly innovative Australian centre for interaction design has invited the University of Canterbury’s HIT Lab NZ to become a key player in its research effort.

 

The Australian Federal Government has committed A$12.4 million over seven years to the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Interaction Design (ACID), based at the Queensland University or Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. And QUT and its industry and academic partners will invest a further A$7.4 million to develop creative technologies for improving access to the digital world and creative industries.

 

Interim Chief Executive Officer of ACID, QUT's Professor Jeff Jones, says the HIT Lab NZ will play an essential role in developing the establishment of “an innovation system in the Asia Pacific region, particularly in the fields that are merging design and interaction with technology and creative industries”.

 

“Dr Mark Billinghurst [HIT Lab NZ director] is a globally recognised innovator and we are excited about the possibilities for new research and commercialisation that he and his New Zealand partners bring to the list of other Australian participants.

 

“We see Mark and his Lab as the key element that makes ACID an organisation that is truly global and truly Australasian," says Professor Jones.

 

The HIT Lab will be contributing staff time and its technologies to a number of collaborative research projects and will also host visiting researchers from the five Australian universities partnering in ACID: QUT, the University of Queensland, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Murdoch University, and Griffith University.

 

Dr Billinghurst says he is very excited about the ACID initiative and is thrilled the Lab has opportunity to work with such an “impressive set of partners”.

 

“Involvement with large research efforts such as ACID is vital for the HIT Lab’s engagement with the international community. ACID will definitely be one of the major centres for innovation in interaction design.”

 

ACID is one of 11 new Australian national Cooperative Research Centres chosen from over 60 proposals. In addition to federal government funding the ACID has major industry backing and core commercial partners such as SGI, Auran Technologies and New Zealand’s Cloud 9 Screen Entertainment Group. ACID research projects will begin in the later part of 2003 and will continue for the next seven years.

 

More information about ACID, its research focus and the partners involved can be found at //www.interactiondesign.qut.edu.au/