Just over 12 months from the next World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2025), the first to be hosted in Australia (Brisbane), Professor Keith Crews, conference chair, is all hands on deck preparing for the world’s preeminent timber engineering conference with a call for abstracts closing on 30 June 2024.
Last year, Professor Crews revealed to Wood Central’s Jim Bowden that the “conference will highlight the advances and carbon benefits of timber construction, particularly for Queensland government stakeholders as they plan the 2032 Olympic venues and athlete accommodation.”
Professor Crews, director of the Australian Research Council’s Research Hub to Advance Timber for Australia’s Future Built Environment (or ARC Advance Timber Hub), is busy leading the charge in making timber the material of choice in Australia.Â
“The hub has built a large partnership of organisations that believe in its strategic vision, mission and purpose,” according to Professor Crews, who officially launched the ARC Advance Timber Hub earlier this year: “This includes developing a roadmap to change that unlocks substantial value and transformative benefits for industry, society and the environment.”
However, before chairing the WCTE 2025, pushing for a timber-led Olympics and directing the ARC Advance Timber Hub, Professor Crews was a 34-year-old consulting engineer studying for a master’s degree by research part-time at the University of Technology in Sydney.
In 1990, Keith Crews was awarded a Gottstein Fellowship to study Research and Development Trends in Structural Applications of Timber for Expansion of the Non-residential Market for Forest Products in Australia, which, according to Gottstein, “formed the basis of future research projects and the development of design procedures and design aids for Architects and Engineers, both at undergraduate and graduate levels.”
The 194-page report “highlighted the importance of technology transfer” to apply “state-of-the-art timber technology” in order to establish a “recognised Centre for Excellence in timber design, involving education, research and specialist consulting.”
Reflecting on the project, which was published in 1992, Professor Crews said the Fellowship provided “enormous impetus for both the research and consulting work that I was undertaking at the time as well as providing the opportunity to establish an invaluable “network” of researchers and colleagues in overseas Universities and Timber Research establishments.”
“Today, many of the folk in this network continue to be close friends and colleagues with whom I have worked as an academic over the past 30 years in developing an internationally recognised reputation in Timber Engineering.”
“Today, many of the folk in this network continue to be close friends and colleagues with whom I have worked as an academic over the past 30 years in developing an internationally recognised reputation in Timber Engineering.”
So far, more than 160 Gottstein Fellows have been awarded since the Gottstein Trust’s formation in 1971 – and include Kevin Lyncoln who is among the Fellows who “have also mentored me, provided insightful advice on many occasions and kept me grounded as an academic to ensure that the work I was undertaking was useful for the timber industry in Australia and overseas,” Professor Crews said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Fellowship I was awarded by the Gottstein Trust provided a unique opportunity that shaped my professional career and opened the door for me to engage in a successful academic career,” Professor Crews said. “I believe that I have been true to the intent and purpose of the Trust, and my contributions to both industry and the Engineering profession have honoured the legacy left by Bill Gottstein so many years ago.”
Professor Crews delivered a keynote presentation on “High Technology Wood Meets Net Zero Carbon” at the 2023 Gottstein Trust Understanding Wood Science course (https://gottsteintrust.org/grants-courses/understanding-wood-science-course), which gathered industry participants from across Australia for a week of learning.
More about the Gottstein Fellowship
The Gottstein Fellowship is a grant awarded to people who work within or are associated with the Australian wood products and forest industries. This may be anywhere on the value chain. A fellow is funded to conduct a research project that they have put forward. Most projects entail international and/or domestic travel. To learn more about the Gottstein Fellowship and the Gottstein Trust, visit the Gottstein website.
