Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-08 Daily Xml

Contents

Venture Catalyst Program

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN (14:36): Supplementary question arising from the answer from the minister: were the other universities in South Australia given an opportunity to partner with the government, or was this given to the University of South Australia as an exclusive tender?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:36): This is a University of South Australia program. We have a wide range of programs with all the different universities. There is the Medical Device Partnering Program with Finders University, and we have previously supported a wide range of different programs right across different universities.

You will have heard me in the last few weeks talk about the Premier's Research and Industry Fund (PRIF), which goes across universities. We are very proud of the innovations happening right across our university sector and work very closely with all our universities. In fact, at events this morning, I was talking to people from the technology transfer offices from different universities and representatives from all our universities.

I am very pleased that I spend a lot of time with the New Ventures Industry, for example, from Flinders University, and the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) which the government has financially supported at Adelaide University. I thank the honourable member for his question. I know he will be most pleased to note the very wide range of support we provide for our universities in these sorts of research and commercialisation opportunities.