Closing the doors at ACID

Thursday, 24 June 2010

For immediate release

After seven years of research in the field of interaction design, the ACID researchers, students and staff have closed the physical door, but not without first opening a metaphorical window.

ACID, the Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design, has been researching the field of interaction design since being established under the Australian Government Cooperative Research Centres Program in 2003.

Exploring better ways for people to interact with each other using communication technologies, ACID’s expertise lay in helping people participate in the digital world.

The last seven years have produced a massive amount of amazing research at ACID and elevated the careers of some extraordinary researchers and early career scientists.

Chief Executive Officer Amanda Boland-Curran said that ACID’s capacity-building program had contributed significantly to the field. “You only have to look at the destinations of our fabulous graduands to see why we’re so excited at ACID to have been a foothold for their careers. ACID really has been powering the next generation of interaction designers.”

With ACID closing on 30 June 2010, the ACID crew worked hard to ensure ACID’s research outcomes would live on after the CRC closed on 30 June 2010.

“The closing months were a cyclone of activity making sure that the fantastic research conducted by academic and industry researchers over ACID’s life has a home to go to when we close our doors, “ Ms Boland-Curran explained.

“Several ACID projects delivered outcomes that were picked up by third-party end users for use in their businesses,” she said.

“In some very special cases the researchers involved in their development have purchased the IP so they can exploit it commercially. This has created new business opportunities for those researchers, and ACID shareholders will benefit from future royalty streams.”

“We’re extremely proud of ACID’s results. We really do believe that ACID has played a large part in putting interaction design on the map. When we first started it was such a new and largely unknown field in Australia. Now seven years later – having partnered with some major research players such as Nokia, Cochlear, ResMed, Deloitte Digital, Endeavour and the ABC – interaction design is recognised as an important field of practice.”

ACID thanks all of the researchers, students, staff, stakeholders, participants and collaborators who’ve been a vital part of its success over the last seven years, and wish them all the very best in their lives post-ACID.

For more information on ACID’s story and the future of its research outcomes, contact Ms Boland-Curran (ACID CEO) at info@acid.net.au. For information on ACID’s research program, please contact Prof Andrew Brown (ACID Research Manager) at a.brown@qut.edu.au.

For further information about the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program please email crc.program@innovation.gov.au.

 
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