GEMOC's strategic focus
The main targets of GEMOC’s founding activities were defined to be large-scale problems related to lithosphere evolution and understanding the relevance of different types of crust-mantle domains to area selection for mineral exploration. These have broadened during 2003 to involve whole-mantle perspectives of geodynamics, and far-field and feedback effects involving the lithosphere.
Despite the coincidence of GEMOC’s term with a time of increasingly contracting activities in the mineral exploration climate, our industry interaction has steadily increased and now forms a significant part of the ongoing funding. Our industry interaction is largely based in strong collaboration; interchange of concepts and discussions on GEMOC strategies relevant to industry needs is invaluable in maintaining our focus on industry relevance.
The increasing industry collaboration with funded projects related to lithosphere evolution and crustal generation studies has fulfilled one of our major strategic goals of delivering new tools and a new framework of terrane analysis to the minerals exploration industry. Some of these new tools and concepts are summarised in the Research Highlights, and the Technology Development section.
"[GEMOC] funding, like a good investment portfolio has a healthy diversity ... across competitive traditional schemes, ... to substantial industry collaborative projects, provision of value-added products to the mineral exploration industry and one-off opportunities such as the DEST Systemic Infrastructure Intitiative"
GEMOC’s Context
A SHORT HISTORY OF GEMOC: The National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC) formally commenced in January 1996 and was funded under the ARC Key Centre scheme for 6 years. Under the government regulations for this round of Key Centres, there was no provision for extension of Centre funding beyond the original six-year term. A detailed business plan was required in the application to demonstrate how the Centre could continue and maintain its identity after the Commonwealth funding term. This business plan has succeeded and the evolved GEMOC started its new phase in 2002 with an independent well-funded base for the next five years.
GEMOC’S FUNDING BASE FROM 2002: This funding, like a good investment portfolio, has a healthy, risk-minimising diversity ranging across competitive traditional schemes such as those available from the Australian Research Council, to substantial industry collaborative projects, provision of value-added products to the mineral exploration industry (see the section on Industry Interaction ) and one-off opportunities such as the competitive DEST Systemic Infrastructure Initiative in 2002 that granted over $5 million to enable GEMOC’s Technology Development Program to stay at the forefront (see the section on Technology Development ).
GEMOC’S LINKAGES AND ALLIANCES: GEMOC was initially based on the pre-1995 collective profiles of the core participants at Macquarie and the networked group at ANU (Faculties), with collaborative links to CSIRO, AGSO (now Geoscience Australia (GA)) and colleagues at other Australian universities. GEMOC has significantly evolved and expanded from its original base with shifts in the original linkages. Interaction with CSIRO and GA has grown and transformed over the six years. Strong new national and international collaborative research links and programs have emerged and robust ongoing engagement with industry (mineral exploration and technology manufacturing) partners through collaborative projects has fulfilled one of GEMOC’s original goals. |
