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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-28 Daily Xml
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SCIENCE GRANTS

378 Mr MARSHALL (Norwood) (11 September 2012). With respect to 2012-13 Budget Paper 4, Volume 2, pg 183, program 2.1: Science and Innovation—

What are the details of all grants and funds mentioned in sub-program 2.1, including why some grants have been discontinued, and what the one-off grants and funds administered were meant to achieve?

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for Recreation and Sport): The grants and funds referred to in the question are as follows:

Program Purpose
Playford Centre In South Australia the Playford Centre acts as a virtual business incubator investing small amounts of seed capital provided by the Federal Government in emerging South Australian companies. The State Government funds provide Playford's operating costs.
SA Research Fellowships The SA Research Fellowships have been established to expand the State's research talent and to target research activities that directly reflect government priorities. $1 million (over four years) has been awarded to each of the state universities to assist with attracting world class interstate or overseas researcher. The areas identified are: clean technology chemistry; minerals processing; and experimental physics.
Cooperative Research Centre's The CRC Assistance Program was established to provide SA Government agencies the opportunity to participate in CRCs, influence the CRCs research objectives, activities and projects to address relevant SA issues, contribute to the employment of researchers and technologies in SA, promote regional development through the creation of new jobs and seeding of future industry opportunities and assist in the development of networks between researchers, industry participants and policy makers both nationally and internationally. Support through CRC Assistance Program is reliant on those CRCs receiving funding from the Commonwealth CRC program.
Northern Advanced Manufacturing Industry Group Engagement of school students in potential career pathways in engineering and manufacturing.
STEM promotion To address workforce shortfalls in STEM areas projected for 2020 in South Australia
Medical Devices Partnering Program Flinders University received $200,000 to support the industry engagement activities associated with the Medical Device Partnering Program. The funding will be used to fund technical exploration of projects identified through facilitated workshops.


The question also seeks information on the cessation of funding for Playford Centre and why the funding to the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) program will be lowering 2012-13. On 13 October 2010, the then Minister for Science and Information Economy, released a media statement announcing the State Government's decision to explore an orderly, well managed and phased wind down of Playford. This decision was based on the need to achieve substantial budget cuts across the State Public Service.

With regards to 2012-13 funding for the CRC program, in 2011-12 the SA Government's funding for the following CRCs with research activities in South Australia have ceased:

CRC for Advanced Automotive Technology

CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment

CRC for Internationally Competitive Pork

CRC for National Plant Biosecurity

Invasive Animals CRC

eWater CRC

CRC for Beef Genetic Technologies

This was due to the cessation of funding from the Commonwealth which resulted in several of the CRCs no longer being in operation. A number of the CRCs listed above have been successful in receiving further Commonwealth funding and these are CRC for the Advanced Automotive Technology—now renamed to Automotive Australia 2020 CRC, CRC for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, CRC for Internationally Competitive Pork now renamed to CRC for High Integrity Australian Pork.

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