The WA state government has had the hefty contribution on the table for several years. It was initially budgeted to help get a National Centre for Geomechanics off the ground in a move designed to create a facility to complement the niche National Centre for Mine Ventilation in New South Wales. The latter was established in 1999 as an initiative of the Canberra-based Minerals Tertiary Education Council. The facilities were conceived to address a critical shortage of professionals in these specialist areas.
However, competition between WA tertiary education institutions offering mining engineering and geotechnical courses – which, according to MTEC has led to the “failure of the universities to form an effective collaboration in WA” -- continues to spread thinly available resources and funds, making it extremely difficult for a geomechanics centre to garner broader support.
According to MTEC, moves are afoot to dust off the cobwebs and re-establish the WA initiative. But it would require a strong link between all players in the minerals industry to make it viable and successful, said University of NSW professor Jim Galvin. Such a link has been missing up until now.
In his recent report for MTEC backer, the Minerals Council of Australia, Galvin said the lack of collaboration between university partners in WA was damaging broader support for MTEC’s objectives, and certainly didn’t help the industry during a period of such acute geotechnical personnel shortages.
“The formation of the National Centre for Geomechanics has been hampered by the lack of a collaborative association between partners in WA,” he said. “This issue needs to be resolved in order to develop a charter and business plan for the centre to take to industry.
“However, the centre is only one mechanism for addressing the critical shortage of competent geotechnical engineers. Geotechnical engineering is a component of both civil and mining engineering undergraduate programs. A number of universities offer post-graduate qualifications in geotechnical engineering. One of the main challenges is attracting adequate students to make these programs viable.”Australia's Mining Monthly
