Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition - Australia: people and circumstances shaping this symposium's successful first 50 years

The symposium 'Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition - Australia' (RA) was instigated at the University of New England (UNE) in the early 1970s. In the 1950s and 1960s, under the visionary leadership of Professor G. L. (Bill) McClymont, a talented group of young biochemists and nutritionists was recruited to become the Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition at UNE and quickly developed a strong reputation for nutritional research on ruminant and monogastric animals. Its members were keen to share their findings with relevant industry representatives and to learn about the major industry challenges. The idea for RA emerged similar to 1970 when Drs Robin Cumming and David Farrell saw the opportunity for regular RA schools, bringing invited experts from Australia or overseas to interact with UNE staff, post-graduate students and representatives of the monogastric and ruminant livestock industries. The first RA school was probably held in 1974. Aided by flexible working arrangements at UNE, David Farrell was able to champion further RA meetings that were held successfully about every 2 years. However, similar to 1990, the federal Education Minister John Dawkins began a process of amalgamating Australian higher-education institutions that produced detrimental administrative and financial ramifications for UNE and drained staff morale. After the 1993 meeting, Professor David Farrell left UNE, followed soon afterwards by Professor Ron Leng. The future of RA was at a crossroads; its funding and organisation needed overhauling to enable it to survive. A second, more formal phase of RA meetings (13 in all; 1995-2021), was instigated within a newly formed Department of Animal Science at UNE. The meetings became more formalised and even more financially dependent on industry support and sponsorship; meetings were planned by larger organising committees. Soon, papers were being formally refereed and the scope for provocative speculation of the type promoted at earlier meetings was somewhat curtailed in favour of scientific rigour. Organisers experimented with changed meeting dates, formats and venues at UNE, cumulating with a contentious decision to hold this meeting away from UNE. Despite its challenges, RA has grown in stature over 47 years from the small, informal schools of the early 1970s, to become Australia's leading animal nutrition symposium.