NSW-based research gets funding boost
The NSW Government’s investment in Cooperative Research Centres is bringing positive results, with four NSW-based centres achieving success in the latest round of highly competitive Commonwealth funding. “Four Cooperative Research Centres with headquarters or substantial research activity in NSW have bid for, and won, over $125 million from the Commonwealth Cooperative Research Programme, with over $75 million to be spent in NSW,” said Minister for Science and Medical Research Frank Sartor.
“The NSW Government had a direct role in their success, having pledged a co-investment of nearly $3 million from the Science Leveraging Fund in CRC R&D, training and business development carried out in NSW. This is in addition to that provided for support of funding applications and to strengthen their business cases. The four centres will directly attract $120 million in research funding to NSW and will increase the skills base of the State by supporting commercially directed research activity as well as over 200 PhD student scholarships and highly skilled jobs each year,” said Mr Sartor.
The Cooperative Research Centres to receive State Government support are:
“These innovative research centres bring together universities, industry and government agencies to solve environmental and health questions and to drive economic growth through high end training and skills development, research and commercialisation,” said Mr Sartor. “They will play an important role underpinning NSW strengths as a global leader in financial services, biotechnology, ICT, healthcare and sustainable agriculture.
“The breadth and depth of the research activities that will occur in these CRCs ranges from biotechnology applications to improve the quality and yield of meat and wool to the development of technology used by banks and stock markets to increase safety and fraud protection of major international trading systems,” said Mr Sartor. The centres will receive NSW Government support under the Science Leveraging Fund, which was established to increase the success of NSW CRC applications to the Commonwealth, thereby and attracting research centres that show strong benefit to NSW research and industry.
“The NSW Government’s support for these Centres adds real value to their activities, with one CRC planning to use the funding to increase its NSW-based PhD students by 30 graduates over the first three years,” said Mr Sartor.
Earlier this year, the NSW Government also awarded these CRC consortia with $30,000 grants to assist them in the preparation of business cases and applications to the Commonwealth for CRC funding. “I am glad that our previous support has helped these Centres achieve success in building their business cases and funding applications,” said Minister Sartor. “I congratulate them and look forward to successful developments during this 7 year CRC round.” | 
