Morrison Government announces a $1.6bn research translation fund

Called “Australia’s Economic Accelerator”  it will fund research with commercial potential and then application for the government’s six national manufacturing priorities, resources and critical minerals, food and beverage, medical products, recycling and clean energy, defence, plus space

The three-stage process consists of,

* 100 grants of up to $500 000 a year for research, culled to

* 36 $5m projects, requiring 50 per cent commercial partner investment, reduced to,

* “main sequence venture”  consisting of $150m in two co-investment funds

There is also $296m over ten years for, 800 industry PhDs and 800 industry fellows plus $150 million for CSIRO to back start-ups and commercialise research.

The funding appears additional to the $240m unis-CSIRO “trailblazer fund” and the emphasis on applied research funded by the ARC, announced by acting education minister Stuart Robert before Christmas.