International collaboration with PACE

Monash University has recently become the first university in Australia to join forces with Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE).

The announcement was made jointly by Victoria's Minister for Manufacturing and Export Mr Tim Holding and Monash University vice-chancellor Professor Richard Larkins.

The $16 million alliance involves the university's Engineering and Art and Design faculties. The Art and Design faculty is only the second of its kind - and the first outside the US - to join PACE.

PACE will provide industry-specific software and hardware and allow the training of undergraduates, postgraduates and staff in product development activities.

A PACE Engineering Centre will be established at Clayton campus and will play a major role in the mechanical, mechatronics, aerospace and industrial engineering, and engineering management programs. Meanwhile, the Art and Design PACE facilities at Caulfield will provide major benefits to Monash's industrial design students.

Professor Larkins welcomed the arrangement. "Monash is a major supplier of graduates to the design and manufacturing industries. PACE facilities will support the training of students in industry-specific design applications resulting in better employment outcomes for our undergraduate and postgraduate students," he said.

Denny Mooney, chairman and managing director of PACE partner Holden Limited, said there would be many benefits to industry from the arrangement. "In the case of General Motors and Holden, the PACE alliance is an opportunity to invest in the future by investing in the most important resource we have -- our people."

PACE is a corporate alliance between General Motors (represented in Australia by Holden Limited), EDS, Sun Microsystems and UGS that has been in place since 1999.

It supports key academic institutions worldwide with computer-based engineering tools to prepare mechanical designers, engineers and analysts with the skills to compete in the future. PACE has contributed software, hardware, training and technical support to schools like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Michigan State, Northwestern and Virginia Tech, and institutions in Canada, China, Germany, Mexico and Sweden.