Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) are an

Australian Federal Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national Executive (government), executive government of Australia, a federalism, federal Parliamentary system, parliamentary con ...

program involved in Australian

scientific Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

research. The CRC programme is administered by the Commonwealth

Department of Industry, Science and Resources The Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) is an Government of Australia, Australian government department operating from 1 July 2022. Formerly known as the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER), the Clima ...

, which provides funding for projects through a series of funding rounds.

History

The CRC came about from several internal discussions in Government and particularly from a Round Table that took place at the start of 1991 that included the Hon Bob Hawke, Hon Paul Keating. Since the commencement of the CRC Program in 1991, there have been a number of selection rounds. Selection rounds were conducted in March 1991, December 1991, December 1992, December 1994, and then at regular two-year intervals: 1996 through 2006. The very first selected CRC division was the CRC for “Waste Management and Pollution Control”, based on campus of University of New South Wales (UNSW). The very first appointment under the CRC was by Assoc. Prof. Raymond J Frost (previously Director for BHP Civil Engineering and Technology). Following the review of the Programme in 2008, the 11th and 12th selection rounds were both held in 2009. Reviews of the CRC program are regularly undertaken. In 2012, an independent impact study found that from 1991 to 2017 CRCs generated a net economic benefit of $7.5 billion. This equates to an annual contribution of $278 million, or around 0.03 percentage points to GDP.

CRCA/Cooperative Research Australia

The Cooperative Research Centre Association (CRCA) was established on 1 December 1994 to promote the CRC program while also acting as a conduit for information sharing and learning between CRCs. It was rename
Cooperative Research Australia
in 2021 and is active in representing CRCs, post-CRC entities, universities and research organisations as well as businesses involved in R&D.

Governance and description

The Cooperative Research Centres program is intended to enhance Australia's industrial, commercial and

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

through development of cooperative public-private research centres that achieve high levels of outcomes in adoption and commercialisation. The CRC program is administered by the Commonwealth

Current programs

, programs include: * 201
CRC for Developing Northern Australia
$75M * 201
Food Agility CRC
$50M * 201
CRC for High Performance Soils
$39M * 201
iMove CRC
$55M * 201
Fight Food Waste CRC
$30M * 201
MinEx CRC
$50M * 201
Digital Health CRC
$55M * 201
Future Fuels CRC
$26M * 201
Cyber Security CRC
$50M * 201
SmartSat CRC
located at

Lot Fourteen Lot Fourteen is a business and technology precinct at the eastern end of North Terrace in Adelaide city centre, South Australia. The site formerly accommodated the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, which was moved to a new building at the western ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

$55M * 201
Future Battery Industries CRC
$25M * 201
Future Food Systems CRC
$35M * 201
Blue Economy CRC
$70,M * 202
SmartCrete CRC
$21M * 202
Building 4.0 CRC
$28M * 202
Future Energy Exports CRC
$40M * 202
CRC for Transformations in Mining Economies
$29 * 202
RACE for 2030 CRC
$68M * 2021 Marine Bioproducts CRC $59M * 2021 Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition Cooperative Research Centre (HILT CRC) $39M * 2021 Digital Finance CRC $60M * 2022 Sovereign Manufacturing Automation for Composites (SoMAC) CRC $70M * 2022 CRC Solving Antimicrobial Resistance in Agribusiness, Food and Environments (SAAFE) $34M * 2022 One Basin CRC $50M

Past programs

SERC

The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Space Environment Management was administered by the Space Environment Research Centre (SERC). Based on Mount Stromlo, SERC operated from 2014 to 2021 and conducted research into practical global efforts for space debris management, mitigation and removal. SERC Participants included EOS Space Systems,

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian Telecommunications in Australia, telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiar ...

Satellite,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

RMIT University The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (abbreviated as RMIT University) is a public research university located in the city of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia., section 4(b) Established in 1887 by Francis Ormond, it is the seventh-o ...

and NICT (Japan).

Bushfire CRC

The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre was an Australian-based organisation which conducted research into the social, environmental, and economic impact of bushfires. Although the CRC has completed operations, a legacy of a decade of research content is still online and accessible. Funded originally by a grant from the Australian government's Cooperative Research Centre in 2003, the Bushfire CRC was funded to 2014 to address key issues raised by recent major fires. The Bushfire CRC was made up of all the fire and land management agencies in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, CSIRO, the

Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Government of Australia, Australian Government that is responsible for providing Weather forecasting, weather forecasts and Meteorology, meteorological services to Australia a ...

, the Attorney General's Department and several other fire related organisations. A small executive office was maintained in

East Melbourne East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. East Melbourne recorded a population of 4,896 at the 2021 ce ...

. The organisation participated in the Cooperative Research Centres Association (CRCA). The work of Bushfire research was carried forward within the expanded research portfolio of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, from 2013 to 2021, and now with Natural Hazards Research Australia (NHRA). The NHRA was funded for 10 years by the Australian Government on 1 July 2021 as a collaborative research organisation, to address the major challenges arising from natural hazards, including bushfires, floods, cyclones, heatwaves, storms and other hazards. The aim is to deliver usable research and knowledge that creates safer and more resilient communities.

CSSIP

The Cooperative Research Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing (or CSSIP) was an organisation established under the Cooperative Research Centres program. It operated from 1992 to 2006, performing research, development, and education within several

Information and Communications Technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

areas: CSSIP's education arm was assigned to

NICTA NICTA (formerly named National ICT Australia Ltd) was Australia's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence and is now known as CSIRO's Data61. The term "Centre of Excellence" is common marketing terminology ...

in mid-2005.

CRC Spatial information

The CRC for Spatial Information (CRCSI) was a research organisation funded by Australia's Cooperative Research Centre Programme (CRC) and by participant contributions. The CRCSI was founded in 2003 with the successful re-bid announced in August 2009. The programme ended in June 2018.ANZLIC News
, "The CRC for Spatial Information wins rebid". 10 August 2009. The CRCSI conducted research and development projects that involved collaboration between government, corporate, and academic resources. The CRCSI ensured Australia and New Zealand remained relevant in a spatially-connected world. The CRCSI was responsible for innovative research; the application and commercialisation of spatial information technologies by building

collaborative partnerships Collaborative partnerships are agreements and actions made by consenting organizations to share resources to accomplish a mutual goal. Collaborative partnerships rely on participation by at least two parties who agree to share resources, such as f ...

.CRCSI website
/ref> A study commissioned by the CRCSI and ANZLIC in 2008 found that the spatial information industry contributed between $6.4 and $12.6 billion to Australia's

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...

in 2006-2007 alone. CRCSI has offices in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Wellington in New Zealand. The CRCSI research delved into key industry sectors, including: agriculture, natural resources and climate change; defence; built environment; and health through the delivery of spatial information across positioning, rapid spatial analytics and spatial infrastructures.CRCSI Information, 2015
/ref>

CRC Reef

The Cooperative Research Centre for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area operated from 1997 to 2006.

DSTC

The Cooperative Research Centre for Distributed Systems Technology and the Cooperative Research Centre for Enterprise Distributed Systems were two successive CRC programs operated by the Distributed Systems Technology Centre. Its website was archived following its closure in June 2006.

CRC for Advanced Composite Structures

The Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures Limited (CRC-ACS) operated from 1996 to 2015. In 2008 a wholly owned subsidiary, Advanced Composite Structures Australia (ACS-A), was created to manage its rapidly growing commercial activities. When CRC-ACS concluded its mission, the ownership was passed to the then directors and employees of ACS-A who were charged with leading the company into a fully commercial future.

Seafood CRC

The Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre (Seafood CRC) received funding from the Commonwealth Government in the tenth round of CRC funding and was established in 2007 and operated until 2014. The CRC's areas of research expertise include benchmarking, product innovation, genetics, consumption drivers and barriers, processing, supply chain management technologies, technical market access, health claims and nutritional composition. The Seafood CRC resulted in the establishment of the world’s first year-round aquaculture of Yellowtail Kingfish; highly prized for sushi and sashimi. The CRC research had a direct impact on achieving increased fish survival through more effective hatchery management, new information on fish growth and health, superior genetic management and cost-effective dietary formulations.

Notes and references

External links

* {{coord, 35, 16, 54.54, S, 149, 08, 01.91, E, display=title, region:AU_type:landmark_source:GNS-enwiki Funding bodies of Australia