Defence opens Centre for Advanced Defence Research and Enterprise

Defence has opened a new Centre for Advance Defence Research and Enterprise – OCE (CADRE-OCE) at the University of Melbourne. It is dedicated to solving Operating in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Environments (OCE) problems and will receive $4.25 million in funding over the next five years.

The new CADRE-OCE will work in close collaboration with the OCE Science, Technology and Research (STaR) Shot, which has been established by DSTG to tackle the OCE challenges that Australian warfighters are facing now and into the future.

Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Monro said CADRE-OCE would mobilise the national science, technology and innovation ecosystem around challenges of scale.

“CADRE-OCE is bringing together some of the best and brightest minds in academia and industry so we can protect our warfighters in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear threat environments,” she said. “Not only are we investing in new ideas, but we are building the STEM talent pipeline and deepening sovereign skills by investing in our future researchers and innovators.”

Bringing together academic and industry organisations, the CADRE-OCE will develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies to protect military personnel, first responders and civilians and enable them to operate safely in hazardous environments.

Under the Defence Science Partnership Deed, the Commonwealth has signed a CADRE-OCE partnership agreement with the University of Melbourne who will lead the Centre in close partnership with the University of Adelaide, Queensland University of Technology and the University of New South Wales.

A further eight academic institutions and 34 industry partners from multiple sectors will support CADRE-OCE.

The Centre’s Director, Professor Jia-Yee Lee, said that members would collaborate based on their individual strengths and create cross-functional teams to achieve targeted outcomes.

“We will join together key elements of the innovation life cycle, from laboratory experiments, to prototypes, to productisation and finally translating to Defence end-user capability,” he said.