Brisbane is home to two main universities - The University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology. However, it also contains 10 campuses from six Australian universities, including Griffith University, Australian Catholic University, and CQUniversity.

Ranked in the world's top 50, The University of Queensland is one of Australia's leading research and teaching institutions.

Queensland University of Technology is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area - Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove.

Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian studies.

Research institutions and organisations in Brisbane’s innovation and technology sector, covering both the life sciences and clean technology sector, include:
• Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
• Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation
• Syngenta Centre for Sugarcane Biofuel Development
• Institute for Glycomics
• Institute for Molecular Bioscience
• Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation
• Mater Research
• Queensland Brain Institute
• Baosteel-Australia Joint Research and Development Centre
• Cooperative Research Centre for Mining
• Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies
• Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI)

Supported by the city’s world-class research and education facilities, Brisbane offers food and beverage product manufacturers a talented labour pool plus access to the latest food technology and innovation research.

The food and beverage, grocery, and fresh produce manufacturing industry is worth $114 billion to the Australian economy. Brisbane is fast becoming a hub for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturing in Australia.

Brisbane excels in biomedical research, medical device manufacturing and clinical trials on a global scale, and is home to a network of world-class translational research centres and state-of-the-art hospitals and precincts.

This has created a critical mass of knowledge generation driving growth in high-value specialisations such as bio-medicine, vaccine research and drug discovery, oncology, clinical trials, ageing and chronic conditions, neurosciences, hospital management and e-health and human bionics.

Brisbane is home to world leaders in vaccine research. Researchers are connected by an ecosystem of more than 60 institutes - research hospitals, precincts, laboratories and other research organisations, including five drug discovery and development institutes, which together drive new product development:

 The University of Queensland (UQ) Diamantina Institute
 UQ Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development (TetraQ)
 Queensland University of Technology's Institute of Biomedical Innovation
 UQ Centre for Clinical Research at RBWH
 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute's Clinical trials and Biostatistics Units

Brisbane's researchers are addressing many of today's health and medical challenges including the development of new therapeutic approaches to treat neurodegenerative diseases.

The city boasts a critical mass of research centres that contribute to new product development including the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), home to more than 450 scientists working to understand the neural circuits in the brain, and how dysfunction of these circuits can lead to an array of disorders such as ageing dementia.

Griffith University's National Centre for Neuroimmunology and Emerging Disease Research is a world-class research facility focussing on chronic fatigue syndrome.

Mater Research is a recognised leader in medical research. Our bench to bedside philosophy sees us working across Mater Health’s hospitals and health services, The University of Queensland, and the world-class Translational Research Institute (TRI).

Brisbane’s innovative capabilities are grounded in competitive business, world-class research and development, a highly skilled workforce, and leading education institutions.

At the heart of Brisbane’s innovation is its human capital – the people with the skills, knowledge and entrepreneurial know-how to transform ideas into products and services that will benefit businesses and the community, not only in Australia but the world.

Queensland’s resource boom presents the single most significant opportunity for the Brisbane economy. There are currently around 177 resource companies headquartered in Brisbane. Major global players include Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Santos, Peabody Energy, Xstrata, Vale and Bechtel Mining and Metals Division. More giant global resource companies will locate key operations here if Brisbane grows as a global centre for resource industry technologies and services.

• Rio Tinto - Global energy headquarters, Australian coal headquarters and global centre for aluminium research and development
• BHP Billiton/Mitsubishi Alliance - Global coal headquarters
• Aurizon – Global headquarters
• Anglo American - Australian headquarters
• Adani Mining – Australian headquarters
• Bechtel – Global metals and minerals headquarters
• Komatsu – Australian mining headquarters
• Peabody Coal - Australian headquarters
• Sandvik Mining and Construction – Australasian headquarters
• Talisman Energy – Oceania headquarters
• Thiess – Global headquarters
• Vale – Global coal headquarters
• Xstrata Zinc – Australian headquarters

International defence primes have set up operations in Brisbane including Boeing, Northrop Gunman, Airbus, Rheinmetall, BAE Systems and Raytheon.

Rheinmetall’s Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence facility in Ipswich was delivered in partnership with the Queensland Government, bringing a new international defence prime contractor to our state, demonstrating how partnerships between government and industry create jobs and prosperity.

Brisbane is Australia’s third-largest city and is home to nearly two and a half million culturally diverse people. Its world-class sporting venues, conference facilities, cruise ship terminal, parklands, cafes, laneways and extensive river walks make Brisbane a vibrant and welcoming, metropolitan city.

Brisbane’s reputation as an international events capital has been recognised with Brisbane being elected as Host City for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The city has an extensive music, sporting and cultural events calendar that make the most of the year-round temperate climate.

Clustered in its South Bank cultural precinct are the Queensland Museum and Sciencentre, with noted interactive exhibitions. Another South Bank cultural institution is Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, among Australia's major contemporary art museums. Looming over the city is Mt. Coot-tha, site of Brisbane Botanic Gardens.

Brisbane City Council has four resource recovery centres at Chandler, Ferny Grove, Nudgee and Willawong with recycling and waste facilities.

Brisbane households generate many different types of waste – from food and textile waste to e-waste and hazardous waste.

Clothes, footwear, sheets, towels, blankets and household textiles are part of our everyday lives. When it comes time to dispose of these items, there are a lot of things you can do to keep them out of landfill and in circulation.

In Australia, each person generates approximately 20 kilograms of e-waste each year. As a result, Australians have become the fourth highest generators of e-waste per capita. E-waste can be recycled. Just over half of all e-waste is collected in Australia, with 80% of this going to low-efficiency recycling. This means that valuable resources (such as lithium and cobalt) in e-waste are not reused.

Recyclables are taken to Visy’s Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and are sorted into different categories – paper, cardboard, plastics, glass and metal. Any non-recyclable items or ‘contaminants’ are detected by the sophisticated mechanical sorters and removed.

Council collects recycling with dedicated recycling trucks. In 2017-18, Council collected approximately 90,000 tonnes of paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and metals from Brisbane households which were then sorted and prepared for reprocessing into new products and packaging.

Recycling is one of the easiest ways to contribute to environmental issues by helping to conserve water, reduce energy use, reduce greenhouse emissions, reduce reliance on landfill and conserve natural habitats.

The Darling Downs manufacturing sector is worth around $2.8b annually to the local economy with approximately 380 businesses focusing predominantly on food and metal related products. With some support, local manufacturing could increase substantially.
The Federal Government has launched the Modern Manufacturing Strategy to make Australian manufacturers more internationally competitive, help businesses scale-up and where possible adopt advanced manufacturing technologies to improve outputs. The strategy has chosen six industries based on Australia’s competitive advantage, which will become the manufacturing sector’s focus. These sectors include:
• Resources technology and critical minerals processing
• Food and beverage
• Medical products
• Recycling and clean energy
• Defence
• Space
Pixie Ice Cream have invested in packaging automation equipment from German-based company Schubert. This has significantly increased their production capacity to service the Australian and now international markets. Home Style Bake purchased machinery from Switzerland that will triple the output of their bread roll manufacturing. Wagner’s Composite Fibre Technologies recently introduced new robotic technology, enabling cross arms production to increase from 1,000 to 20,000 per month. Oakey Beef recently completed an automated cold storage facility and robotic palletising system.

Toowoomba for Climate Action is playing our part to keep global average temperatures in a safe, liveable range, so that all humans, other species, and living systems can flourish.

Did you know that Toowoomba Regional Council was the first in Queensland to capture landfill methane for energy production?

Council has both reduced the emissions it is responsible for by 80% and now saves ratepayers over $1 million/year in energy savings!

Council’s most demanding energy user, the Wetalla Water Reclamation Facility, is now 90-100% supplied with free renewable power.

Dozens of other Councils have been inspired by Toowoomba Regional Council to do similar projects on their own landfills.

As a cultural hub of the Darling Downs for more than 100 years, The Empire continues to serve our community with a focus on developing the arts in our region, delivering world class entertainment locally and telling the important stories.

Economic Development agencies include Regional Development Australia Darling Downs and South West and State Government agencies including the Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure & Planning and Trade & Investment Queensland (TIQ), plus Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce, University of Southern Queensland (USQ), TAFE Queensland South West, the Toowoomba region’s Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), Tourism Darling Downs, Southern Queensland Country Tourism and regional business chambers and associations.

Apprenticeships and traineeships are excellent examples of pathways into work that have proven to be effective. But they are specific to certain occupations.

Apprentices and trainees made up about 10 per cent of the pathways people take into the workforce. He said policymakers needed to create better vocational education and training (VET) courses to give young people stronger options outside universities and apprenticeships.

3.9 million people were enrolled in vocational education and training last year, but up to 2.4 million of those were in short courses such as first aid and construction safety.

Toowoomba and its surrounding regions which include the Maranoa, Western Downs, Southern Downs, Goondiwindi, Burnett and Moree regions, is a food producing powerhouse for Australia.

The food capability of these council areas is driven by the diversity of fresh and value added products grown and produced in these locations.

Key agricultural outputs for this catchment include cotton, grain, beef, pork, poultry, dairy and fruit and vegetables. Aiding the regions food capability are the regions' research facilities, including the University of Southern Queensland’s Institute for Agriculture and the Environment which focuses on developing solutions for a sustainable and profitable future for the rural sector.

The mining industry, (including; coal mining, oil and gas extraction, metal ore mining, non-metallic mineral mining and quarrying, and exploration and other mining services), has had a presence in Western Gas and coal-fired power stations feature prominently in the region with a total of six active thermal power stations.

Kogan Creek Power Station is one of Australia's most efficient and technically advanced coal-fired power stations. It is one of the greenest coal-fired power stations with the lowest environmental impacts of any coal-fired power station nationwide.

Dalby Bio-Refinery Ltd (DBRL) is Australia’s first grain-to-ethanol facility. The refinery converts nearly 200,000 metric tonnes of sorghum into 76 million litres of ethanol and produces 180 thousand tonne of Wet cake (WDG) or 65 thousand tonne of Dry DDG cake each year, employing approximately 50 people. 13

More recently, renewable energy farms have invested in the region with multiple solar and wind energy farms either currently under construction or approved for construction.

Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Bundaberg and Toowoomba all support a significant ADF presence nearby or provide port and freight access for Defence.

The University of Southern Queensland’s (UniSQ) Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences, based in Toowoomba, provides a dedicated facility for space and defence research. UniSQ’s unique capabilities and facilities include Australia’s longest duration hypersonic wind tunnel (>200ms); the only Australian university solid propellant rocket fuel manufacturing laboratory; rocket motor and fuel tank manufacturing with Australia’s most advanced industry scale robotic composite material filament winding cell; and Australia’s only capability in airborne diagnostics for re-entry observations of Space modules. UniSQ has significant capability in ultra-high temperature ceramic matrix composites for rocket motor components.

Toowoomba is the second largest inland Australian city. Home to a vivid music, café and restaurant scene, many of them in laneways tucked in alongside century-old landmarks, Toowoomba is loaded with theatres, galleries, great shopping and glorious parks and gardens.

Explore the First Coat art project – one of Australia’s most prominent regional arts projects. Artists from around the world have created a walkable gallery of street murals in the heart of the city.

What if we could turn our landfills into producers of renewable, clean energy – if the waste gas from our non-recyclable and non-reusable rubbish were a resource that had a second life?

That’s exactly what we’re doing in collaboration with the Toowoomba Regional Council. LGI is transforming the Toowoomba Waste Management Centre into a renewable energy superpower in the fight against climate change.

Our new renewable energy power station at this landfill is the first in Queensland to convert methane from landfill into electricity. Council’s most demanding energy user will now be mostly (90-100%) supplied with renewable power fuelled by waste gas the tip.

This new project at the Toowoomba Waste Management Centre is the first in Queensland to convert methane from a landfill into electricity to power a Council’s waste water treatment plant.