Australia boosts innovation funding

14 August 2009

The Australian Government has boosted funding for collaborative research and innovation with a $243 million grant.

The funding is part of the government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) program.

Australia’s Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, said that the government is highly committed to supporting innovation and promoting collaboration between research agencies and end users.

The funding includes:

• $17.5 million to establish a new CRC in Energy Pipelines – to enable Australia to meet the increased demand for gas transportation arising from the need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
• $28 million to establish the Deep Exploration CRC – which will focus on developing new technologies to drill faster, cheaper, deeper and safer to address increasingly high production costs and low mineral exploration success achieved to date in Australia.
• $20.1 million to the CRC for Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems – to continue its focus on the world’s understanding of climate change in relation to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, which is critical to our understanding of global warming.