Members break cover to explain what a great job it does

The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy announces a consultant’s report which found that “based on economic theory and evidence from the time of the GFC to present, we can think of few approaches to providing additional stimulus to the Australian economy that are more cost effective than increasing investment in NCRIS.”

“The impact of NCRIS is clear, however the programme itself is not often centre stage.  It is time to shine a light on NCRIS,” which a member of the heavy-duty tech-kit consortium, the National Imaging Facility, duly does.

The last time CMM remembers NCRIS people being this public was in 2015 when then education minister Christopher Pyne suggested that NCRIS was a nice programme and  it would be shame if anything happened to it (CMM February 2, March 5 2015) and members appeared at a Senate Education References Committee hearing, explaining what important work their kit made possible. (CMM March 9 20125).

So why now?

It can’t be because of the Government’s new applied research strategy, – the plan for which says positive things about NCRIS.

Although, ministers made clear last year they wanted an applied research emphasis in the new NCRIS plan through to 2028-29 (CMM June 1 2021). And a survey of industry last year found that of the 30 per cent of responders who did not interact with NCRIS half did not know it exists (CMM November 22 2021).