December 2015 - The Australian Government's new guidelines for Cooperative Reserch Centres (CRC) complete a shift towards an even more industry focussed program.
This is in line with recommendations from the 2015 review of the CRC Program by David Miles, who concluded that the program should continue with a narrowed focus on industry partners and complement the government's Growth Centres initiative.
The review also called for an additional funding stream that could provide for smaller collaborations, primarily targeting small to medium sized businesses (SMEs).
Accordingly, the new funding arrangements are split into two streams that include:
conventional Cooperative Research Centres that provide for long-term industry-led collaborations; and
CRC Projects (CRC-P) for short term industry-led collaborative research.
The new CRC-P stream will require that the Lead Participant is from an industry entity, while at least one of the participants is an SME.
Applications for conventional CRCs will require at least one participant to be an industry entity.
Announcing the guidelines, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne emphasised that the reforms will see "CRCs take centre stage in Australia s innovation economy by focusing on solving industry problems, developing and commercialising new products and services, driving emerging technologies and exploiting global supply chains and new markets .
He also foreshadowed that funding would be prioritised to applications aligned with Industry Growth Centres and the nine Science and Research Priorities.
Funding rounds for both CRCs and CRC-Ps will open in February 2016 with further detail available soon.
