R&D refocus and AI take centre stage at ACM CRC Partner Meeting 2026

Two themes stood out during the Australian Composites Manufacturing CRC (ACM CRC) annual Partner Meeting last week. One was the intensified focus on industry-led R&D and commercial readiness. The other was AI, which as one guest put it: “isn’t the elephant in the room. AI is the room.”

Following the launch of ACM CRC’s ForgeX.AI tool in July and its refreshed R&D direction last year, both AI and commercial readiness featured heavily throughout the two-day event at the Greenhouse in Sydney.

“Four years in, we are guided by a goal to create $8.3 billion in economic value over our term,” explained Mr Luke Preston, ACM CRC’s CEO.

“That is our direction. Accordingly, we are interested in supporting collaborative projects with the most industrial value. These will embed R&D with real commercial value throughout our partner businesses over our remaining six years.”   

R&D Director Dr Stephen van Duin reaffirmed that after the “inflection point” outlined at 2025’s Partner Meeting, ACM CRC has “deliberately supported more projects where industry partners are driving the proposal, defining the outcomes and shaping the commercial plan.

“So over the last 12 months we deliberately supported more projects where industry partners are driving the proposal, defining the outcomes and shaping the commercial plan.”

More projects, and more horizontal projects to spread the value of R&D more broadly throughout the composites industry, had been signed off on in the year.

AI unavoidable this year

Day 1 also brought updates from each Research Project (RP) lead: Dr Tristan Shelley, (RP1, High Performance Composite Materials), Professor Garth Pearce (RP2, Manufacturing Processes), Professor Asim Bhatti (RP3, Simulation and Performance Prediction), and Dr Luigi Vandi (RP4, Design and Integration.)

As Bhatti told guests, manufacturers must act on AI, with measurable gains already being seen.

Citing figures from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Lighthouse cohort, the average results were a 53 per cent gain in labour productivity, 26 per cent saving in conversion costs, 50 per cent reduction in new product introduction time, and 30 per cent less material waste.

At the cutting edge of AI, Day 2’s keynote was Dr Tong Xi, an Associate Lecturer at UNSW Sydney’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE.)

Xi traced a line from his youth – inspired by Thomas Edison to create a material that would change the world – to his current work creating new materials with AI, with the need for far less physical experimentation than Edison’s filaments.

The researcher shared the steps from “AI scientists” to “AI CTO” using large language models (LLMs) plus some of his work in LLMs for hypothesis generation and material design and at his startup, GreenDynamics.

AI and the CRC: what lies ahead

Two second day open sessions will inform where the ACM CRC goes next, the first in AI and the second in general terms.

Associate Professor Scott Barnett, the Deputy Head of Translational Research and Commercialisation at Deakin University’s Applied AI Institute, led the AI conversation.

Among Barnett’s projects is leading the ForgeX.ai factory management project, supported by ACM CRC. It is a free platform allowing composite manufacturers to converse with their factory in natural language.

Preston led the following Strengthening the CRC open discussion.

The outcomes of both sessions will be shared soon. 

RISE Fellowships

Day 1 saw ACM CRC Chair Dr Abby Bloom present three RISE Fellowships. These Fellowships have been awarded since 2023 and support high-potential, early-career women working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to achieve management-level roles across ACM CRC’s partner network.

The 2026 Fellows are: 

●    Eloise Matyear​, Hypersonix Launch Systems: “What excites me most about a career in STEM is the opportunity to push the boundaries of what's possible. I'm grateful to contribute to the technologies shaping the future of advanced composites to fly faster.​”

●    Isabella Garay​, UNSW Sydney​: “A career in STEM allows me to utilise creativity and critical thinking to solve exciting and challenging problems. The opportunity to continually learn, innovate and make a positive impact is what makes me passionate about this field.​” 

●    Siri Rattanaamporn​, University of Southern Queensland​: “My passion for STEM comes from curiosity and the joy of discovery. I enjoy the process of exploring and solving problems - not only when things work as expected, but also when they don’t. Every unexpected result brings a new question, a new understanding and that moment of ‘aha!’ is what keeps me learning.​”

Other highlights 

Day 1 also saw keynote Lisa Blair OAM – currently involved in a project with UNSW Sydney’s AMAC, Steber International, and SOENECS – shared her adventures as a world record-beating sailor and environmental activist.

After drawing attention to the problem of microplastics in even the most remote marine ecosystem, Blair is adopting and promoting Sustainable Composites for Next Gen Boat Hulls, as her ACM CRC project is titled.

“This $1.9 million research partnership aims to investigate the viability of basalt fibre (derived from volcanic rock) and current bioresins as a scalable solution,” she said, noting the circularity potential of such composites.   

In keeping with the increased commerciality focus, this year’s Partner Meeting featured a history-making event in the CRC Program’s 36-year history: a Best HDR competition requiring PhD candidates to frame their research as a business.

The five finalists presented on Day 1 and received awards at the end of Day 2. Attendees voted Deakin University’s Sachini Dissanayake the winner, for her pitch on HEALCOAT, a self-healing coating business.

Dissanayake was followed by Sriram Ravishankar Padma from The University of Western Australia (UWA), Stephen Joseph from The University of Queensland, Neda Bozorgi from University of Southern Queensland, and Jingjing Sun from UWA.

More on the finalists’ pitches can be found here.

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