Review finds CRCs valuable but in need of improvement

The Miles review of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) has been handed down and the Minister for Industry and Science, Ian Macfarlane, has accepted all 18 recommendations.

Lawyer and former chair of Innovation Australia, David Miles, was appointed by the government to conduct the review in September 2014.

The review, Growth through Innovation and Collaboration, found the CRC Program a valuable scheme that could be improved by being more commercially focused and aligned the program with the recently announced Industry Growth Centres Initiative.

There are currently 35 active CRCs that collaborate across a broad range of areas, from poultry and pork to Antarctic climate and ecosystems, cell therapy manufacturing to invasive animals and bushfire. CRCs typically involve medium- to long-term collaborations (10-15 years) that bring private companies, universities and the community together.

The main recommendations of the Miles review were:

• Put industry front and centre - this includes limiting CRC funding to a maximum of 10 years and revising the CRC application process to include a business proposal with objectives such as research commercialisation potential and intellectual property goals.
• Implement the Cooperative Research Centre Projects (CRC-P) - this is a new simplified model for CRCs that will run alongside the current model over a shorter time frame (3 years maximum) with a smaller budget to encourage the involvement of small and medium-sized companies.
• Improve efficiency - this includes a range of measures such as conducting regular reviews to assess whether CRCs are meeting goals, streamlining the application procedure and structuring CRCs as companies limited by guarantee.
• Focus on the five growth sectors announced in the government’s Industry Innovation and Competitive Agenda and prioritise funding for CRCs contributing to these sectors - in October 2014 the government committed $188.5 million in funding to the Industry Growth Centres for five key areas over the next four years: advanced manufacturing, food and agribusiness, medical technologies and pharmaceuticals, mining, and energy resources.

Although CRCs will be aligned with Growth Centres, the review states that CRCs in other research areas will not be excluded from funding. However, another recommendation of the review is that the “public good” funding stream be discontinued. This funding stream was usually given to CRCs conducting social or environmental research that delivered a “broader benefit to the community and society as a whole”.

The CRC Association voiced concerns about the possible exclusion of non-commercial CRCs as well as the 10-year limit on funding of a CRC.

“There are a lot of situations where huge economic issues are at stake but the CRC itself might not be commercial,” said the CEO of the CRC Association, Dr Tony Peacock. “For example, community resilience and recovery from natural disasters might have enormous economic, social and environmental consequences at the same time. We would hate to think a CRC operating in that area is excluded in the future.”

A new CRC Advisory Committee chaired by business leader Philip Clark and including Dr Megan Clark, Dr Michele Allan and Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb will implement the recommendations of the review and the newly proposed CRC Projects, or CRC-Ps.

A new funding round is likely to commence towards the end of 2015.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/mark wragg