Director's Welcome, May 2026

Here we are in May of 2026 and the world continues to be a very interesting place. Despite the current geopolitical context, I hope that the year is going well for you so far. At the SMI we have once again been very busy across all our areas of activity and our desired areas of impact.

Just this month we celebrated a significant milestone with one of our deepest and most significant partnerships.

SMI and MMG started working together over 10 years ago and since then we have conducted more than 42 projects. 

These projects have spanned the capability range of almost all our centres and have worked on most of MMG’s key mining assets.

Our partnership with MMG stands out as being one of close collaboration and co-creation and some of the most impactful projects have involved cross disciplinary efforts involving multiple specialists from both the SMI and MMG.

One of the more notable projects include our collaboration on the Izok Lake project in northern Canada where we worked together to redefine the project to address its technical and sustainability challenges.

Another standout initiative has been the leadership training programme that has seen many of MMG’s leaders come to UQ to carry out training with representatives from the SMI, the UQ Business School and the UQ School of Psychology. 

Our collaborative work on leading safety indicators has also been a highlight.  Having recently renewed the agreement for our partnership we look forward to many more years of successful collaboration.

Another significant development for the SMI has been our continued and growing collaboration with the Mackay Resources Centre of Excellence (RCOE).

The Mackay RCOE hosts the Flexilab facility, an idea developed at the JKMRC and brought to fruition through the initiative of the RCOE and its partners supported by Queensland government funding.

We're now moving into the phase of developing collaborative research and training programmes to make use of that facility, and to broaden our collaboration with the RCOE into other areas of mutual interest.

It is always great to host visitors at the SMI and you will read more about our cohort from Saudi Arabia in the newsletter. 

In addition to that, though, two recent sets of visitors to SMI prompted a half day workshop entitled “Colombia, Czechia & Australia perspectives on mine closure”. 

The visitors were the SMI’s COALAR grant collaborators José Fernando Gómez & Valentina Rincón (Regional Centre for Responsible Business and Entrepreneurship, Colombia) as well as Dr Kateřina Černý Pixová & Dr Markéta Hendrychová (Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic). 

It was instructive to hear the insights around mine closure from those two very different jurisdictions, and to chat with visitors from two other continents.

We have two important changes to the SMI senior leadership to announce in this newsletter.

First, Professor Claire Cote has resigned and will move to a private sector consulting role in late May. 

Claire has made a significant contribution to the SMI over the last seven years through her leadership of CWiMI and through the impact of her various project involvements and initiatives.

These include acting as representative on the ICMM Consolidated Mining Standard Stakeholder Advisory Group, leading the development of SMI Environmental Management and Mine Water management training courses, contributing positively to standards of environmental practice in Queensland, and through successful leadership of the popular AusIMM Life of Mine conference. 

We wish Claire all the best in her new role.

Second, Melissa Glendenning has announced that she will retire from her role as Director Institute Operations in July of 2026.  Melissa has been with the SMI for over 10 years and has made an enormous contribution to its successful operation and culture over that time.  It is impossible to list all the contributions she has made; all the people she has helped; and all the ways in which she has led the professional team to facilitate the success and wellbeing of the SMI.  We wish Melissa all the best in her well-deserved retirement.

As 2026 continues to unfold, I wish you all the best and look forward to staying in touch. We would be delighted to hear from you.