Tips and Myths of Industry Engagement and Partnered Research Success: the story of my own journey

Speaker: Professor Longbin Huang

Abstract: After 15 years of sustained industry partnered research on mine waste rehabilitation, I would like to share my learning and mistakes with you. A successful industry partnered research career requires some essential skills in industry engagement and multi disciplinary research team. This requires a researcher to develop a research vision aiming for the big picture facing industry sectors, to articulate the vision together with industry leaders and champions, to secure phase-based and long term funding to progressively scale up the proof of concept, together with dedicated industry partners. Convincing and confidence building outcomes are critical to funding sustainability. In this talk, I would like to share my experience and insights in industry partnered research, which may help you to develop your own research career.

Bio: Longbin Huang is a full professor and a group leader at The University of Queensland, leading a research program of "Ecological Engineering in Mining". He has pioneered new concepts and technological approach to help the mining industry to achieve sustainable rehabilitation of mine wastes (e.g., tailings, acidic and metalliferous waste rocks). His research focuses on developing field-feasible technologies to enable the realisation of nature-based rehabilitation outcomes, for much improved ecological resilience and sustainability at mine sites. Recent success includes the "ecological engineering of Fe-ore tailings and bauxite residue" into soil. According to Scopus (Feb, 2024), Longbin is the most productive author on “mine tailings” in Australia. His research has been cited in 3,174 documents across more than 114 countries, by authors from more than 160 institutions, across 27 different subject categories (e.g., Agricultural and Biological sciences; Environmental Science, Engineering/Chemical Engineering, Material Science and Medicine). Longbin's industry-partnered research was recognised in 2019 UQ’s Partners in Research Excellence Award (Resilient Environments) (Rio Tinto and QAL).