The Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS) was established in 2001 and is a strategic agreement between key researchers at the University of Tasmania, RMIT University and the University of Western Sydney to form a consortium of Australian researchers working in separation science. This consortium has the following aims:
(i) to maintain an outstanding level of international renown in research on separation science in Australia,
(ii) to coalesce and enhance Australian research on separation science into an organised structure operating with a coordinated research plan which addresses and exploits the most exciting and innovative themes in modern separation science,
(iii) to provide enabling research and research training of the highest quality which supports and advances all major areas of Australian science.

Australian research in separation science has long enjoyed an excellent international reputation, earned by the individual activities of talented researchers. ACROSS offers an organisational and resource base through which these individual researchers can work in a coordinated and synergistic manner under a series of structured and interlocking research programs. This avoids duplication of effort, allows resources and expertise to be shared and value-added opportunities to be provided broadly to industry, academia and the Nation, and also establishes much needed national training facilities in separation science.

Research in ACROSS has been structured into focused programs to provide both fundamental and applied research outcomes in separation science. ACROSS draws together multi-site, internationally prominent and genuinely collaborative research teams, having complementary skills and synergistic resource-base expertise, and committed to focused programs of national significance. The 8 research programs listed below address separations of compounds of diverse polarity, molecular size, shape and complexity at the analytical level.

• Program 1: Separation media and materials


• Program 2: Multidimensional and hyphenated systems


• Program 3: Microfluidics and miniaturized separation technologies


• Program 4: Detection and identification technologies


• Program 5: Trace analysis and speciation


• Program 6: Macromolecules and particles


• Program 7: Theory, optimisation and simulation of separation processes


• Program 8: Applications

To read more about ACROSS, please have a look at our Annual Report 2009