Centre of Excellence race: and then there were four

Applicants for the Federal government's Biotechnology Centre of Excellence were today whittled down to four.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and Education, Science and Training Minister Dr Brendan Nelson announced the shortlist from a field of 11 proposals, adding that the final decision would be made mid-year.

The short-listed applications were the Australian Centre for Biotechnology and Biodiversity, the Neuroscience Biotechnology Centre of Excellence, the Centre for Stem Cell and Tissue Repair and the Australian Biotechnology Centre of Excellence for Control of Infectious Diseases.

Announcing the proposals that had made it through to the next round, Macfarlane said the expert panel had been impressed by the quality of the applications.

"Dr Peter Jonson, chair of the panel of experts overseeing the selection process, has advised me that the panel was most impressed by the high quality of the research proposed by each application," Macfarlane said.

"Four proposals stood out as being best positioned to give Australia a strong competitive advantage in biotechnology."

Nelson said the ultimate centre would act as "a powerful stimulus for growth in this rapidly emerging sector".

"This Biotechnology Centre of Excellence is important because it will attract world class research and investment, as well as generating new Australian biotechnology companies," said Nelson.

The next stage of elimination will involve applicants being subjected to a rigorous interview process before the panel recommends "one or more" for funding to the Australian Research Council board and the Commonwealth Biotechnology Ministerial Council.

But while winners are grinners, the seven applicants whose proposals missed the cut were today left to consider their future options.

The interim director of the bid for the Agrifood Biotechnology for Human Health application, Dr Nigel Steele Scott, said his group was disappointed at missing out after having out in so much work.

"We had got a whole group of people together who had never come together before to relate what's grown in the paddock to what we eat in terms of nutritional health," Steele Scott said. "But there were 11 applicants and only one can win."

Steele Scott said the collaboration could consider approaching the Australian Research Council and rural development corporations for backing to continue its vision.

"We will be trying some of these new vertical collaborations with other agencies," he said.

Another bid knocked back was the Canberra-based Australian BioScience Centre Consortium, headed by deputy vice-chancellor (research) at the Australian National University, Prof John Hearn.

Particular focus

Prof John Shine, director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, said the committee chose applications which were very focused in a particular area such as stem cells, rather than the applications which were more broadly biotechnology-based.

A Garvan bid for a biobusiness centre at the a St Vincent's research and biotechnology precinct did not make it to the short list, but Shine said he still had a hand in the biodiversity and the neuroscience proposals.

"I am surprised that the one which involved a lot of support from the agriculture sector was not short-listed, but I am sure the committee had their reasons," Shine said.

However the short list, "is a recognition that we need to focus our efforts not to spread the limited resources too thinly, trying to do everything in biotechnology," he said.

"I think a centre of excellence in any one of these areas is an important piece of the jigsaw puzzle in Australian biotechnology."

Additional reporting by Daniella Goldberg