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Media Release

Supporting Australian innovation through collaboration

24 September 2007

The Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Julie Bishop MP, today announced that the Australian Government will provide $62.3 million to more than 200 new collaborative research projects to be conducted over the next five years.

The projects, funded under the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Linkage Projects scheme, also attracted commitments of more than $95 million from more than 400 partner organisations, including businesses, community organisations, industry bodies and other public sector agencies.

“Linkage projects provide a framework for greater collaboration between researchers and the business community and industry,” Minister Bishop said.

“This provides researchers with greater support and also means their research directly supports the nation by making our economy and industries more efficient, innovative and world competitive.

Linkage Projects are funded under the Government’s 10-year $8.3 billion commitment to innovation from 2001, Backing Australia’s Ability.

“After paying off Labor’s $96 billion debt last year, the Government is now able to make investments such as the $6 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund, which will provide ongoing support for research infrastructure in our universities for decades to come.”

Linkage Projects research funded in this round include work to investigate:

• a new technology called RNA interference, which may lead to improved treatments for cancers (The University of Queensland with Benitec Ltd).
• state-of-the-art infrared detectors for use in future advanced systems for defence surveillance and sensing, mineral exploration, biomedical instrumentation, precision agriculture, environmental monitoring and homeland security (The University of Western Australia with Raytheon Australia and Raytheon Vision Systems).
• the incidence and consequences of cyber bullying in school communities and develop strategies for teachers, schools and parents (Queensland University of Technology with Brisbane Catholic Education; Brisbane Girls Grammar School; Emil Ford & Co. Lawyers; Macrossans Lawyers; Queensland Chapter of the Australian and New Zealand Law Association; Queensland Independent Education Union; and Queensland Teachers' Union).
• methods of detecting and diagnosing impending failure of the bearings in aeroplane engines well before the damage becomes serious, to provide greater security to the flying public and the Australian armed forces (The University of New South Wales with Rolls-Royce plc).
• technologies and best practice models for recruiting and retaining high-quality professional staff to enable child protection service delivery in rural and remote communities with high proportions of Indigenous families and children (Curtin University of Technology with the Queensland Department of Child Safety and the Western Australian Department for Community Development).

Attached is a statistical overview of the funding round. For more information, visit www.arc.gov.au.

Media Contacts: Minister Bishop’s Office: Murray Hansen 0417 886 155
Australian Research Council: Fiona Skivington 0412 623 057

Linkage Projects Round 1 for funding commencing in 2008: Statistics

Overview

* Rounded

Funding by ARC discipline groupings

Projects in the ARC disciplinary grouping Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences will receive the highest funding at $16,747,471.

Projects in National Research Priority areas

Ninety-eight per cent of successful applications are considered by the applicants to lie in the National Research Priority areas.

Partner organisation investment by industry sector

Administering organisation outcomes

The University of Queensland will receive the highest Linkage Projects funding in this round at $13,711,837 followed by The University of Sydney ($5,509,210) and The University of New South Wales ($4,904,170).

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