National benefits, and communication and outreach programs

New techniques will be developed to facilitate state-of-the-art experiments, new theoretical insights, and computational techniques that will each make a major impact upon scientific and applied research in these fields. New techniques in XAFS and DAFS (Diffraction Anomalous Fine Structure) will be developed.

Implementation of this in the design and application of Australian research will benefit all XAFS users and all associated research. These will lead to many high-profile publications, and may lead to novel devices, discoveries and beam-lines at National facilities. There may be drug discoveries or new technology developed through the interactions augmented by this Network, for example.

An annual Network Workshop, and Summer School will be held on a rotating basis between states and key node participants' institutions. The Workshop will be an open forum for senior researchers and cross-disciplinary interchange, and will especially be a forum for bringing the cognate interests of the disparate members together to enable meaningful discussions and tutorials. The tutorials will be a key aspect of the attached Summer School program and will be particularly directed towards younger researchers and interactions between Nodes. The Workshop and Summer School are not intended to cover all aspects of Network members' interests but are intended to be useful and practical. The Summer School will not focus of the same field (or node) each year, but will have as varied and interesting a program as possible, especially for younger researchers. The Workshop will likewise change its focus from year to year but will aim to be a forum for all nodes. Key issues, problems and missing pieces of knowledge or technology will be a major focus, and not just reporting of successes (though of course this will also be given).

The Network will also support and foster related Australian conference meetings and (Australian) interactions at international conferences.

Other areas of expected development will have similar wide-ranging and broad-application impact.

• The Network will promote developments of technologies that will be included in new major Australian research facilities, the Australian Synchrotron and replacement nuclear research reactor.
• New tools and techniques in electron and X-ray diffraction will make advances towards the accurate structure determination of smaller crystals, metals, plastics and liquids; as the regular lattice becomes smaller the challenge becomes greater.
• The Network will contribute to worldwide efforts involving 2D crystals and single (biological) molecular structure determination, as many biologically active molecules do not crystallize; the rewards in biomedical understanding would be tremendous.
• Application to novel enzyme or drug design and function could yield large economic rewards for Australia.
• Minerals are Australia’s largest export commodity. This network will help to improve the industry's efficiency in exploration and mineral processing by giving it access to state-of-the-art, specific technologies. Efficient assessment of minerals of interest or of the type of waste product from industrial processing may all yield significant economic and social benefits. The initiative will draw on its broad collaborative talent base to find practical solutions as quickly as possible.