CQUniversity is working ‘behind the seams' on many projects of benefit to the booming resources industry, as its campus footprint overlaps with some of Australia's richest mining regions.

For example, researcher Ben Kele is focused on special volcanic rocks to help solve the coal seam gas (CSG) industry's water problems.

While CSG water has environmentalists and farmers concerned about its high level of salt and its potential to damage groundwater and farming lands, Mr Kele has developed a filtration system that reduces the high levels of sodium salt, enabling the water to be re-used in farming or industry.

"The concentration of salt is the major water quality issue limiting the beneficial use of coal seam gas water," Mr Kele explained.

"The salinity and sodicity concerns of associated water need to be addressed before the water can be reused for agricultural or industrial purposes."

Mr Kele says his volcanic rock filtration process not only extracts the salt but replaces the unwanted elements with elements that will replenish soils.

Trials are currently underway with CSG water from a number of Australian gas basins in partnership with wastewater treatment company Midell Water and recycled water consultants Arris.

A pilot plant has been built by Water Infrastructure Group (WIG), designed to treat about 50,000 litres of water per day. Mr Kele said the results to date are more than promising.

"We have been able to reduce the amount of sodium salt considerably and increase the amount of magnesium and calcium which is beneficial for soil health," he says.

"We have also been able to treat other pollutants of concern such as boron, fluoride, and strontium. The technology has proven to be more cost effective and beneficial than other systems currently in use in the industry."

Meantime, shiftwork may be a cornerstone of the resource boom, but industry has long grappled with questions about its effect on miners' productivity, fatigue and alertness levels.

CQUniversity has developed CQ-based specialists on shiftwork and sleep patterns and now it's also attempting to tackle this regionally relevant concern from an unlikely setting - Adelaide, South Australia.

Renowned human factors and safety researcher Professor Drew Dawson has been appointed as the University's inaugural Engaged Research Chair. Professor Dawson will head up our new Appleton Research Centre in Adelaide, with access to a state-of-the-art sleep laboratory and cognitive performance facility.

CQUniversity has already shown it's possible to develop training and education pathways in concert with potential employers. In fact, workers on mine sites have been able to access tailor-made associate degrees without having to pause their careers.

More recently, CQUniversity has responded to industry pleas for high-level project management skills with a new suite of postgraduate programs developed especially for the resource and infrastructure sectors.

A rapid-response team of academic leaders across a range of disciplines was able to pull together these programs, focused by former telecommunications specialist Richard Egelstaff, who has first-hand experience of coordinating massive infrastructure projects.

Mr Egelstaff, who had a pivotal role pulling together the consortium behind the billion-dollar Nextgen project, says Australia's balance of trade is at stake as projects are likely to collapse or go overseas without the skills to bring them to fruition in Australia.

"We don't have a monopoly on resources," he says. "If we cannot execute a project efficiently and effectively within the constraints then we're in trouble."

"These projects can't be run remotely from interstate or overseas. We need people on the ground who know how to run them with high-level thinking at a local level."

Mr Egelstaff says 'sophisticated' project management skills are vital to protect the linchpin of Australia's prosperity.

"We'll be undercut by other resource regions around the world if we don't get our act together.

"If we get it right we can guarantee Australia's prosperity. If not, the good times could come to and end within a decade or so. This is an historic opportunity but best-practice project management must underpin our approach.

"We need to provide skills so people are aligned to Central Queensland as the prosperity engine of Australia. We don't need courses which have been developed for IT or corporate services or those piggybacking on American case studies.

"CQUniversity's movers and shakers have mobilised and fast-tracked this inter-disciplinary course. It was only nine months from conception to the first students coming on line."

Meantime, CQUniversity is also working at the macro level to improve its responsiveness.

The revamped Queensland Centre for Professional Development (QCPD) will help as a brokerage to ensure business and industry can find the best available solutions for upskilling employees, all the way from one-day sessions, to short courses to full degrees.

QCPD will offer a holistic approach to workforce skills development, skills analysis, articulation and credit transfer, and recognition of prior learning. It will continue to offer careers guidance services and to arrange supported pathways into the most critical careers.

The University is also poised to become Queensland's first dual-sector institution, with strong momentum towards amalgamation with Central Queensland Institute of TAFE, creating seamless pathways across vocational and tertiary qualifications within the next few years.

Specific examples recently have seen CQUniversity consult with Xstrata Coal Newlands Mine to offer a customised graduate certificate in management, leading to a graduate diploma in mining management which can articulate into an MBA or a Masters in Management (Engineering).

The University has previously created Associate Degrees in Mining and Geoscience (devised in consultation with BMA and AngloCoal), including the AD Geoscience, the AD Mine Technology and the AD Mine Operations Management.

CQUniversity has also been working with a range of partners to present 'Women in Hard Hats' Careers Awareness Workshops, helping females workers to cash in on coal jobs, and diversifying the pool of talent available to the resources industry.

One of CQUniversity's research teams are working hand-in-hand with global engineering and mining systems company Nepean to help streamline the coordination of emergency response to potentially hazardous conditions and events such as a roof collapse or underground fire.

Plenty of other researchers are also engaging directly, including those working on Hybrid Electric Systems for Heavy Machinery, and those using floating aquaponic units with local native plants to remove excess nutrients from ponded water on mine sites, to reduce the spread of blue-green algae outbreaks.

CQUniversity's Sustainable Regional Development team has recently completed a study, seeking the best way to calculate, report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the trucking industry. 

The University's regional development economists are at work to find ways for mining towns to 'thrive', not just survive, ensuring they have both 'bonders' who can create social glue and 'bridgers' who have links to relevant industry sectors.

And the Centre for Railway Engineering is showing how incremental changes can also save millions of dollars for railway systems.