Director's Welcome, November 2025

Dear All,

We are moving toward the end of another good year for the SMI, and I hope your year is going equally well.  Once again, a lot has happened since our last newsletter, and I hope you find some of it interesting and relevant to your activities.

I want to start by mentioning some significant milestones for SMI staff, and this edition of opening remarks is dominated by the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISHC).  First, I want to acknowledge the upcoming retirement of Professor David Cliff, who has been with UQ for almost 25 years.  David has made an enormous contribution to MISHC and the SMI, and he remains a hugely respected figure in mining safety.  David has been present and making an impactful contribution at many of our industry’s tragic and seminal moments right up to the present day.  I also congratulate Professor Maureen Hassall on receiving the 2025 AusIMM Jim Torlach Health and Safety Society Award in which they cited her “long-term, high-impact contributions to fatality prevention, critical control management, and process safety across the resources sector and other high-risk industries”.  Last, but not least, congratulations to Dr Nikky LaBranche for topping off a highly-awarded year by winning the Woman in Resources Technological Innovation Award at the 2025 Women in Resources National Awards. Congratulations also to the 2025 winners of the SMI Memorial awards, detailed later in this newsletter, and to the nine SMI staff who were successful in UQ’s 2025 promotion round, in which they demonstrated substantial achievement across our four performance domains of Teaching, Research, Supervision and Service.

In October the SMI co-hosted the successful 2025 UQ Energy and Resources Leaders Dinner, bringing together the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines, Manufacturing and Regional and Rural development along with 60 other guests representing industry, government and academia in both minerals and hydrocarbons.  This is the first time that the SMI co-hosted the event with the UQ Gas and Energy Transition Research Centre, who have been successfully hosting the event for many years.

At many recent events, I have been proudly sharing some of the SMI’s latest milestones that speak directly to our targeted areas of impact: better outcomes for resource regions; better outcomes for resource projects; creating tomorrow’s mining leaders; and developing the enabling technologies to reach those ends.

In resource regions, an example of our impact is the QRC-sponsored project examining post-closure renewable energy potential in the Bowen Basin region of Central Queensland.  SMI staff led by Professor Claire Cote and Dr Pascal Bolz recently facilitated a well-received multi-stakeholder workshop on the topic in Mackay.  Another example is our nearly complete IBN Iritya project with the IBN Corporation, who represent three Aboriginal groups in mining-affected regions of the Pilbara.  The SMI, led by Dr Sarah Holcombe, are working with them to write the IBN history, improve trust governance, and measure the impact of the trust.

In resource operations, a significant milestone has been the completion of the first five-year term of the Coarse Particle Flotation Research (CPR) consortium, and the transition to a second five year term commencing in 2026.  The consortium, led by Dr Liza Forbes, has provided a valuable forum for seven industry partners to share experience, research insights and lessons from their experience with coarse particle flotation.  If you are wondering why you should care, coarse particle flotation has the potential to greatly reduce energy use and emissions from mineral processing operations, as well as increasing the likelihood of reduction and/or elimination of tailings.

On future leaders, we are coming to the end of successful major training initiatives in Mongolia with the UQ-led and Rio Tinto-sponsored South Gobi Underground Mass Mining Institute (led by Professor Andre van As) as well as the Latin American Mining Skills program, sponsored by the Australian Department of Education and led by Dr Doug Aitken and Professor Maureen Hassall.

In enabling technologies, we are celebrating the launch of Bioculum, an engineering company aiming to operationalise innovations developed by the SMI’s Eco Engineering research group led by Professor Longbin Huang.  We are also moving to phase two piloting of pyrite encapsulation technology for avoidance of Acid and Metalliferous Drainage at Codelco’s Andina operation in Chile, in work led by SMI ICE Chile.

Finally, the SMI have led some important thought leadership activities over the past few months, including the Acid and Metalliferous Drainage Workshop, the 8th Annual Dust and Respiratory Health Forum, a Mineral Security Masterclass attended by representatives from over 60 countries, and the 2025 international Society of Economic Geologists conference.  We intend to maintain and grow our activities of this type in the new year.
As the year draws to a close, I’d like to extend my best wishes to you all for the holiday season. I hope you find time to rest and recharge, and I look forward to reconnecting in 2025.