National Affairs

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr, has announced funding of $243 million for world-class collaborative research and innovation under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program.

The successful grants include:

• $20.1 million to the CRC for Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems – focusing 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.
• $28 million for the Dairy Futures CRC which will conduct research in new pasture varieties and farming systems will assist the dairy industry to adapt to climate change and reduce environmental impacts.
• $20 million for the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies - working on the capture of carbon dioxide from stationary industrial sources; its compression; transport and storage in deep geological reservoirs.
• $17.5 million to establish a new CRC in Energy Pipelines – will enable Australia to meet the increased demand for gas transportation arising from the need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
• $12 million for CRCMining which will develop technologies to assist the Australian mining industry reduce its CO2-e footprint. The Centre’s activities are structured around four research programs. Three programs address emissions reduction by  improving operational efficiency of mining systems and individual mining machines. The fourth program addresses emissions reduction by developing a novel drilling system to more effectively capture fugitive emissions from coal mines.

In addition, the Government announced in the May Budget that the Bushfire CRC will receive an additional $15 million over three years from 2010 to tackle specific research tasks arising from the experience of the Victorian bushfires.

Further information about the funding is available here.