President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Kernot Professor of Engineering at the University of Melbourne

Keynote topic:
Innovation in large companies – the three essentials (November 29, 2.30pm)

Professor Batterham is acknowledged as an expert in innovation and gives regular keynote talks on the topic. He is Kernot Professor of Engineering at the University of Melbourne and also President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Until recently he was Group Chief Scientist, Rio Tinto Limited and Chairman of the International Energy Agency Expert Group on Science for Energy.

He has had a distinguished career in research and technology, in the public and private sectors in areas such as mining, mineral processing, mineral agglomeration processes, and iron making. He is inventor on over 20 patent families.

Professor Robin Batterham was Chief Scientist to the Australian Federal Government from 1999 to 2005.

He has been President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the International Network for Acid Prevention and is President of the International Mineral Processing Congress as well as chairing the Australia India Collaborative Research Fund.

He is an elected Fellow (or Foreign Fellow) of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Engineering, the Swiss Academy of Technological Sciences, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering as well as Fellow of several learned societies.

Professor Batterham’s current research interests centre on innovation in energy systems: options for future generation and distribution, transport options, energy reduction in comminution and in dewatering of low grade materials (brown coal, agricultural wastes and recycled materials) together with breakthrough work on low emission aluminium production.