The ACEMS Annual Main Retreat affords an important opportunity to bring together researchers, students, and external stakeholders, from across Australia and internationally, to grow connections, opportunities, and share knowledge. In 2021, the retreat was run in a connected hybrid format with four in-person events and online via Zoom.

A total of 199 ACEMS members and industry guests registered to attend the annual retreat. It was great to see the high level of engagement of industry guests, who actively participated in both the Main Retreat and Student/ECR Retreat programs.

Industry Engagement Aspects of Annual Retreat

There is a strong focus on industry engagement at the Annual Retreat, within both the Main Retreat and the Student/Early Career Researcher programs.

The Main Retreat Program, for all members, featured:

• ACEMS stakeholder engagement presentation(s).
• Industry and stakeholder invitations (including POs, IAMs, and other current and potential collaborators).
• Industry guest speakers affording an opportunity for our industry stakeholders to either showcase an existing or proposed collaborative project with ACEMS.
• Ideas Challenge and Industry Collaboration Support Scheme (ICSS) presentations from ACEMS members who have received funding.

The Student and Early Career Researcher (ECR) Retreat Program, featured:

• An Industry Panel session and Q&A.
• Contributions from industry guests during other sessions as appropriate.

Given the hybrid nature of the retreat and the fact that sessions were held via Zoom, usual activities such as networking drinks, lunches and dinners with industry guests were not possible as they had been previously.

Industry Presentations at ACEMS Annual Retreats

A total of 13 industry guest speakers delivered presentations or spoke on industry panels, as part of both programs. These speakers came from 10 different organisations, including POs, IAMs, and others.

Industry Guest Speakers at the 2021 ACEMS Main and Student/ECR Retreats
Speaker	Organisation
Hugh Possingham	Office of Queensland Chief Scientist
Rachael Thomas	Fast.ai
Peter Steinle	Bureau of Meteorology
Vu Nguyen	Amazon Research Australia
Sally Cripps	CSIRO/Data 61
Chris Volinsky	AT&T
Bernadette Guiffrida	Australian Bureau of Statistics
Juan Ortiz	Australian Institute of Marine Science
Carolyn Huston	CSIRO
Petra Kuhnert	CSIRO
Tina Navin Cristina	Sax Institute
Matthew Hall	VicRoads
Alex Herold	VicRoads

In the final year of the Centre’s active operations, the Centre developed and launched the ACEMS Ideas Challenge. The scheme was funded with $60k of surplus Central funds due to reduced travel activity, online events and other COVID-related savings from the Stakeholder Engagement Portfolio. The scheme was designed to assist members with driving a final burst of activity with the Centre’s Partner Organisations and provide a foundation for ongoing research activity beyond the end of ACEMS.

Read more about the ACEMS Ideas Challenge and funded project ideas here.

In 2021, the Centre secured external grant funding to support its National Science Week activities. This funding enabled the Centre to supercharge the scale and variety of National Science Week events including the Great Barrier Reef Citizen Science Challenge. The event was a huge success with several other activities to support the Citizen Science Challenge event and showcase the Centre’s ongoing work on preserving the Great Barrier Reef with AIMS and other industry partners.

Read more about the ACEMS National Science Week Initiative events here.

A range of events were organised jointly with ACEMS members and industry, government, and/or end-users in 2021. These activities have played a significant role in academic-industry engagement, networking, and knowledge transfer. These seminars and workshops covered a variety of important research topics including:

• Explainable AI.
• Synthetic Data.
• Responsible Data Science.
• Climate Extremes.
• Open-Source Software Packages.

The table below provides details about a selection of these. Further details regarding the Synthetic Data workshop can be found in the ABS PO report and the Responsible Data Science Symposium can be found here.

Event Title	Location
Decode Datathon: Decoding Business Statistics The QUT CDS Decode Datathon is a selective one-month intensive facilitated training event where teams of data scientists, professionals and subject matter experts come together to delve into topical real-world challenges, develop meaningful insights and leverage or create novel datasets to provide solutions to problems identified by government or industry.	Brisbane
Environmental Modelling for Better Predictions & Decisions A two-day symposium covering all aspects of the environment including ecology, populations, fisheries, agriculture, climate, weather. The event also covered modelling topics suitable to broad audiences in mathematics, statistics, or data science.	Brisbane
Focused Workshop: Synthetic Data A hybrid workshop held in partnership with the Australian Data Science Network. The workshop covered topics including synthetic data generation, generating time-series and machine learning topics. Recordings of the talks are available online: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5yIxhVj46z1bvmE6VeaobSQChtFIw4fd	Hybrid
International Symposium on Forecasting ‘Considered the forecasting field’s premier international conference, the ISF showcases the full scope of forecasting sectors. This year’s event features sessions on climate predictability, forecasting electricity demand, forecasting in business and supply chains, financial-market volatility, forecast optimality, early-warning signals, tourism forecasting, information-technology trends and macroeconomic trends, and forecasting for public good, among many others.’	Online
Practical Applications of Network Science workshop This two-day workshop included: Two skill building tutorial sessions using the software environment R. The workshops will start at an introductory level and proceed to working with real-world applications. A series of invited talks including leading researchers on how they used network science in the problems they care about. Bringing together diverse researchers working on the common theme of network science in facilitated networking sessions.	Online
Predictive Maintenance and Bayesian Statistics ACEMS & Dingo Software held a workshop at QUT with guests from Information Systems and Engineering on predictive maintenance models and opportunities to improve the accuracy and explainability using Bayesian and other approaches.	Brisbane
Research Impact Workshop A tailored workshop on Research Impact, to better create, capture, value, and communicate research impact.	Hybrid
Showcase of the Data Science for Social Good A showcase event that featured the results of several Data Science for Social Good projects completed in partnership with non-profits and social enterprises.	Brisbane
Explainable AI Synthetic Data Responsible Data Science Research Impact Workshop Focused Workshop: Synthetic Data Open-Source Research Software Panel Discussion ACEMS Members meeting with industry collaborators at a working dinner during an ACEMS workshop ACEMS AI Gentry White presenting at the Responsible Data Science Symposium

ACEMS members delivered 21 presentations to external organisations across industry, government, non-profit, and research, as detailed in the table below. Many of these were a ‘briefing’, being for the primary purpose of knowledge transfer or research translation to a targeted audience including research collaborators or end users.

ACEMS Member Briefings and Presentations to External Organisations in 2021
External Organisation	Summary of Briefing or Presentation	Key Participants from ACEMS and Organisation
AIMS	ACEMS was referred to AIMS' Reefworks manager and Athena Defence AI.  The initial meeting on 28 October enabled mutual introductions and a briefing by ACEMS on relevant reef research with AIMS and others, and capabilities.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke & Kerrie Mengersen AIMS: Melanie Olsen
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)	Angela Dahlke held first briefing with ARDC's Dr Tom Honeyman regarding: research software as a research output in the mathematical sciences ACEMS research software outputs including R packages and related educational resources, hackathons, seminars, etc ARDC's draft National Agenda for Research Software & strategy in relation to promotion of research software as a first-class research output Proposed introductions to ACEMS members active in research software, including for meeting/briefing with Prof. Rob Hyndman, and possible engagements (including proposed podcast, webinar panel, and invitation to public lecture by Matt Wand)	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke & Rob Hyndman ARDC: Tom Honeyman
Australian Space Data Analysis Facility	On the recommendation of the Australian Space Agency, representatives from ACEMS and the Australian Space Data Analysis Facility (ASDAF) have had a number of meetings to provide briefings regarding the purpose, capabilities, resources, of each organisation, interest in space data (and needs from a researcher perspective) and how the organisations may collaborate to realise goals, including to harness space data.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke ASDAF: Asha Stabback
Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA)	Results of investigating the additional transmission of COVID-19 prevented by three-day back tracing of contacts was presented to members of the CDNA.	ACEMS: Laura Boyle, Dennis Liu & Joshua Ross Department of Health (Vic): Allen Cheng UoM: Jodie McVernon
Communicable Diseases Network Australia	Final briefing on the incremental utility in reducing COVID-19 transmission of back-tracing three days prior to symptom onset against tracing two or three generations of close contacts.	ACEMS: Laura Boyle, Dennis Liu & Joshua Ross Department of Health (Vic): Allen Cheng UoM: Jodie McVernon
Commission of Excellence and Innovation in Health	Presentation on mathematical modelling of healthcare systems.	ACEMS: Nigel Bean & Laura Boyle CEIH: Tina Hardin
Deloitte Space	On the recommendation of the Australian Space Data Analysis Facility (ASDAF), ACEMS and Deloitte have had a number of meetings to provide briefings regarding the purpose, capabilities, resources, of ACEMS, the aims of the Deloitte sponsored Gravity Challenge which harnesses space data to solve industry-nominated challenges, and supports the development of solutions via a structured program. There was a discussion regarding ACEMS research which may be relevant to Challenge participants, such as in the areas of data integration, which may be shared as part of the Gravity Challenge mentoring program. The organisations also discussed how they may collaborate to realise goals, including to identify challenges associated with the use of space data, that are relevant to ACEMS research themes - and opportunities for ACEMS members to connect with the Gravity Challenge for participation, mentoring, making industry connections, knowledge exchange, professional development, and possibly unlocking funding (e.g., from Government or the Australian Space Agency or Industry challenge owners) to support development of ideas/collaborations.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke Deloitte Space: Geraldine Baca Triveno & Byron Riessen
Dingo Software	Kerrie Mengersen briefed representatives from DINGO, the world leader in providing Predictive Maintenance solutions to asset-intensive industries (e.g., mining, defence, etc), regarding a number of different methods from statistics and data science relevant to their current work in predictive maintenance, along with a number of examples of application in collaborative research by ACEMS members across a number of nodes.  The discussion also considered future data opportunities (e.g., space data), economic transitions, and other technologies which could be relevant. This briefing, whilst enabling knowledge transfer, may also lead to a future collaboration with DINGO.	ACEMS: Kerrie Mengersen. Dingo Software: Steve Buckman and Nishani Musafer.
Dingo Software	Kerrie Mengersen provided a research briefing to a Dingo Software Data Scientist and Engineer, regarding statistical strategies, approaches and methods potentially relevant to predictive maintenance remaining useful life (RUL) models.	ACEMS: Kerrie Mengersen Dingo: Nishani Musafer
Dingo Software	Mohammad Davoudabadi provided a research briefing to a Dingo Software Data Scientist and VP of Engineering, regarding State Space Models and Bayesian Methods (including MCMC and SMC methods) potentially relevant to predictive maintenance remaining useful life (RUL) models.	ACEMS: Mohammad Davoudabadi Dingo: Nishani Musafer & Steve Buckman
DST Group	A briefing with DST's Human Systems Integration (HSI) team leader and key researchers at which a selection of ACEMS researchers, researchers from other fields, and applied human performance domains could discuss research, capabilities, infrastructure, tools, and questions of interest to HSI, whose research aims to enhance the protection, performance and safety of their personnel through the application of human centred research and the design, acquisition and implementation of systems. The Human Sciences Integration team is interested and noted the relevance of research, capabilities, infrastructure, and research questions/ideas, to their HSI and other areas of DST, and was interested in a further briefing, attended by a wider group of researchers from ACEMS and its human performance network, as well as exploring future collaboration opportunities.	ACEMS: Tomasz Bednarz and Clara Grazian. DST Group: Chris Brady, Larissa Cahill and Ryan Dummin. QUT: Dylan Poulus and Michael Trotter
Federal Reserve Board	Talk given for Federal Reserve Board useR group (28 September 2021) – Abstract: It is becoming increasingly common for organizations to collect large numbers of related time series, and existing time series analysis tools are not always suitable to handle the scale, frequency and structure of the data collected. We will introduce the R packages tsibble, feasts and fable, designed to work with the tidyverse to flexibly manage and analyse collections of related time series. We will look at how to do data wrangling, data visualizations and exploratory data analysis, and we will show how some classical time series models can be applied using the fable package.	ACEMS: Rob Hyndman
Flying Fish Technologies	Flying Fish Technologies heard ACEMS Stakeholder Engagement Officer and Deputy Director of Stakeholder Engagement on radio during National Science Week discussing the Virtual Reef Diver project.  They were keen to meet and discuss the Virtual Reef Diver project, relevant expertise/infrastructure behind it, and their projects and initiatives, and more broadly the work of ACEMS.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke & Kerrie Mengersen Flying Fish Tech: Robert Bell & Brett Kettle
Food Agility	Quarterly reporting with the QUT team as a "Showcase" style of online achievements and updates of the project.	ACEMS: Miranda Mortlock QUT: Paul Corry
Food Agility	Second quarterly report with the QUT team as a "Showcase" style of online achievements and updates of the project.	ACEMS: Miranda Mortlock QUT: Paul Corry
Healthy Land and Water (HLW)	James McGree gave a presentation to HLW on a project and related work about an adaptive sampling design for low-cost vision-based flow-sensors and spatial statistical stream-network models to generate flow predictions throughout a river system.	ACEMS: James McGree
Sax Institute	A briefing to discuss synthetic data, further to the Synthetic Data workshop in September, attended by Sax Institute and members of ACEMS and the ADSN research/stakeholder community.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke & Kerrie Mengersen Sax: Kerrin Bleicher, Tina Navin Cristina & Richard Summerhayes
Trusted Autonomous Systems (TAS)	ACEMS Stakeholder Engagement Officer briefed TAS-D CRC Chief Scientist regarding ACEMS relevant capabilities in relation to Great Barrier Reef and marine monitoring, including work done with AIMS as well as capabilities of interest to, and which may be harnessed in a collaboration with, Flying Fish Technologies (FFT) (since FFT is a current shortlisted applicant for TAS-D funding).  Dr Devitt confirmed the relevance of the capabilities to significant future opportunities, requested a document comprising a statement of vision and capabilities of people interested in opportunities, and noted relevant resources to consider (e.g., ethics in AI in Defence) and contacts to make, including at AIMS.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke TAS: Kate Devitt
University of Queensland School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences (UQ SCMB) Industry Advisory Board	ACEMS Stakeholder Engagement Officer Angela Dahlke was invited to give a talk to, and lead a discussion with, the UQ SCMB's Industry Advisory Board.	ACEMS: Angela Dahlke Abbott Rapid Diagnostics: Mark Volling Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology: Trent Munro CSIRO: Peter Kambouris Davies Collison Cave: Victor Argaet Infinity Care: John Kapeleris Patheon Biologics: Kym Baker QLD Dept of Environment and Science: Mark Jacobs QLD Emory Drug Discovery Initiative: Andrew Harvey Sustainable Minerals Institute: Neville Plint UniQuest: Craig Belcher UQ: Joanne Blanchfield, James De Voss, Liz Gillam, Lisette Pregelj, Avril Robertson, Gary Schenk, Kate Stacey, Mark Starkey, Istvan Toth & Paul Young Life Sciences QLD: Claire Bain AusIndustry: Tracy Constable FitGenes: Carrie Hillyard
VicRoads and Department of Transport Victoria	The briefing affords an opportunity for VicRoads PI and key staff from the Department of Transport Victoria (of which VicRoads is now part) to meet with ACEMS members, discuss key projects happening across the DoT, for ACEMS members to share relevant research capabilities/strengths, and how these may be beneficial to VicRoads/DoT.	ACEMS: Tim Garoni, Jiadong Mao & Joyce Zhang VicRoads/DoT: David Barton, Jeremy Burdan, Fiona Calvert, Roberto Evangelio, Richard Fanning, John Gaffney, David G. Gray, Matthew Hall, Nicki Kyriakou & Adrian S. Webb
World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific	Investigating the utility of additional transmission prevented by three-day back tracing of contacts against tracing two generations of close contacts.	ACEMS: Laura Boyle, Dennis Liu & Joshua Ross WHO: Linh-Vi Le& Simone Moraes Raszl