Geelong, Victoria’s largest regional city, is a hub for advanced manufacturing and a base for engineering design expertise in composite materials, precision engineering, customized steel, fiberglass fabrication and heat transfer technology. Led by Deakin University, the Institute for Frontier Materials and Carbon Nexus are both manufacturing hubs leading investment and research into the future to reshape advanced manufacturing.

Geelong is also a cluster hub for research facilities in advanced materials manufacturing (Australian Future Fibre Research and Innovation Centre), research and containment facility for Australia’s livestock and aquaculture industries (CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory), and an engineering and design training facility in new wind turbines and robotic aids (Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training).

Latrobe Valley in the Gippsland region has a commercial aviation manufacturing industry with GippsAero, Australia’s only manufacturer of commercial passenger aircraft, based at Latrobe Valley Airport.

Advanced manufacturing is the largest industry in Bendigo and Ballarat by way of economic output and employment. Thales, which supplies defence equipment has a presence in Bendigo.

Ballarat is a national leader in the provision of information and communications technology (ICT) with the largest ICT industry in regional Australia. IBM, Emergency Services and Telecommunications Authority, among others, are located in Ballarat. Ballarat is also a growing cyber security hub, assisted by a $1.8m Global Cyber Centre, established by global cloud services provider CT4.

The Gippsland region is the centre of a large forestry industry in timber processing, paper product manufacturing. Austalia’s largest pulp and paper mills, such as Australian Paper Mills and Carter Holt Harvey are based in this region.

Ararat’s AME Systems is Australia’s leading manufacturer of custom wiring harness solutions for a range of heavy industries including transport, defence, rail and special purpose vehicles.