There’s cash in the budget papers
By the bath
* CSIRO gets $455m over four years in new money. Most of it is “to address the impacts of COVID-19 on commercial activities and ensure it is able to continue essential scientific research.” There’s also $5m to upgrade agriculture and grazing research facilities
* there’s $223m over four years for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to invest in research and development for “emerging low emission technologies”
* plus, there’s an unspecified share of the $1.3bn Modern Manufacturing Initiative, “for translating research into commercial outcomes”
* and 235m over four years for VET admin, consumer advice and skills development programmes
By the barrel
* There’s $60m for new NCRIS investment; Great Barrier Reef research, synthetic biology, climate simulation and HASS and Indigenous e-research platforms. But they are not funded by new money, it’s all from the Research Infrastructure Investment Plan
* there is $50m for research by the new Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund
* and the Strategic University Reform Fund has $41m over four years, “to bring together universities and local industries to partner on innovative reform projects”
* $27m over five years will go to “enhance” young people’s STEM skills
* there is $25 million over five years for a Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Industry Cadetship program. This will support 500 women working in STEM industries to complete a work-study based advanced diploma
* the University of Adelaide gets $20m over four years for a centre for augmented reasoning, smarties tell CMM this is all about artificial intelligence.
By the bucket
* $10m for Regional Cooperative Research Centres’ work on recycling (not new money), “to address the impacts of COVID-19 on its commercial activities and ensure it is able to continue essential scientific research”
* $5.8m for the Department of Education, Skills and Employment “to undertake a scoping study of potential options to accelerate the translation and commercialisation of research.” (CMM did not make this up).
* $5m for the Regional Australia Institute, “to fund research and support an awareness campaign promoting regional Australia.” (CMM did not make this one up either).