It’s a conference on “military aspects of blast and shock”

The conference is scheduled for November, at an off-campus Wollongong site, jointly hosted by Uni Wollongong, the University of Sydney and the Defence Department’s Defence Science and Technology Group. It’s for people working in, “blast and shock wave research, associated thermal effects and protective structures.”

By why off-campus, at a venue just up the road from the university’s Innovation site? Perhaps because Uni Wollongong does not want to offend anybody. In January, it withdrew from hosting the Coal Operators Conference, an event the university had been involved with since 1998, but which was vehemently opposed by the local lllawarra Climate Justice Coalition. “The university has considered the immediate needs of its communities at this time and adjusted its priorities accordingly,” UoW announced then, (CMM January 23).