Research into minerals exploration, climate change, greenhouse gas technologies and poultry has received a major funding boost of $96.1 million under the latest round of the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program.
CRC are designed to foster long-term, collaborative arrangements between researchers from CSIRO, universities and other government laboratories, and private industry or public-sector agencies, according to a press release from CSIRO.
CSIRO contributes equipment and research management skills and helps supervise the development of approximately 100 postgraduate research students each year.
The minister for innovation, industry, science and research, Senator Kim Carr, announced funding for ten CRCs in the 11th selection round.
A new CRC, which will see CSIRO’s Minerals Down Under Flagship partner with the University of Adelaide and Curtin University of Technology, will be launched to help lower the cost of finding minerals in Australia.
The Deep Exploration Technologies CRC (DETCRC), which will receive $28 million, acknowledges that the most significant challenge to Australia’s mining industry is to find new resources to replace those now being mined.
Without new resources, one of our most valuable export industries could slowly fade away, says CSIRO.
The CRC, which will be based in Adelaide, will boost the exploration industry in Australia by helping to develop new drilling technologies, better ways of getting more valuable information from drill holes and new targeting strategies, CSIRO says.