The federal government has announced a new Cooperative Research Centre in Cyber Security with $139m in public and private resources over seven years.

The statement by Assistant Industry Minister Craig Laundy did not provide details on the 25 industry, research and government partners however on Sunday Edith Cowan U declared it and the WA state government are lead partners in a project “that is expected to position Western Australia as the nation’s new centre for cyber research and capacity building.”

This is serious money compared to ECU’s last cyber security cheque from the feds. Back in June ECU and the University of Melbourne were awarded a shared $1.9m over four years for “academic centres of cyber security excellence.”

ECU’s Australian Cyber Security Research Institute led the bid with other participating universities believed to include, Adelaide, Charles Sturt, Deakin, QUT and UNSW.