About Us

Our History

Business is all about adaptation and ensuring you are still relevant in a world of changing priorities and customer needs.  2020 will be remembered for COVID-19 and its global impact, but it gave us an opportunity to look into the future of our business and has led to the release of new products and innovation.  To reflect these exciting changes but to maintain our heritage, we decided to take the bold step of changing our name and branding from SIRF Roundtables QLD & NSW to what you see today as Industry Partners Australia (IPA).

Our history before rebranding goes back more than 30 years to Victoria 1988 when SIRF (Strategic Industry Research Foundation) was originally founded by the Australian State Government of Victoria in conjunction with the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering and the CSIRO.  The initial long-term goal for SIRF was to bridge the gap between the private sector and publicly-funded research organisations through initiating and managing industry-led R&D and innovation projects.  For the short-term innovation goal, SIRF set up an industry lead, collaborative network called Roundtables, which began in 1993.

By the year 2000, it was found that the Roundtable approach provided a powerful opportunity for members to explore important business issues to common problems. Therefore, in July 2000, the development of a new organisation, ‘SIRF Roundtables’ began to provide focused support for learning networks.

Today, IPA will continue to support that proud heritage by providing industry with the same opportunities of coming together to engage, share learning and create long-time connections and partnerships.

Our Vision

To create a community of leading professionals and specialists with the common goal of improving the future of Australian industry, collectively making a difference.

Our Mission

Engage | Learn | Connect

We will achieve our mission by,

• Looking to Engage our community of members and specialist partners toward our common goal,
• Giving opportunities to Learn through sharing ideas and innovation,
• Ensuring we Connect organisations, people and specialists to create business excellence.

Our Products

Our products are designed to continuously drive towards our vision with a great mixture of traditional networking and training opportunities but also include new online innovative content and other new features. The most important thing regarding our product portfolio is that we will continue to adopt new technologies but also listen to what our members would like to see; in this way, we create something truly unique in industry today.

Check out our event portfolio to learn more and head to our member events calendar or training and conferences calendar to see what's coming up.