While the feds talk up applied research, people who want to invest in it are waiting

Cooperative Research Centre Round 22 awards were supposed to be announced in March, when Karen Andrews was minister. But in the shuffle at month end she moved to Home Affairs and Christian Porter moved into her portfolio, Industry, Science and Technology.

And whatever was set to be announced wasn’t – leaving the five shortlisted bids waiting on word on funding which is supposed to start in October.

The waiting five are proposals for CRCs on * Longevity, * Digital Finance * Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition * Marine Bioproducts * ONE Basin (climate and water risks in the Murray-Darling Basin).

And Round 11 of the CRC Ps (three years to solve a specific problem in the economy) closed in March with results promised “mid-year.”

There is no word on them either. As of yesterday, Mr Porter’s office, “is doing an excellent impersonation of a black hole,” a learned reader laments.

“Inviting companies to get involved with research and then leaving them waiting for the outcomes is damaging to Australian innovation. If these companies were told of the outcomes in a reasonable timeframe (even a tardy timeframe would do), the money they’ve budgeted would be redeployed to other projects in the new financial year,” the LR remarks.