Round 19 Complete – four new CRCs with investment of $161 million

Assistant Minister Senator Zed Seselja announced three new CRCs last week – Fighting Food Waste CRC; Future Fuels CRC and Digital Health CRC – completing Round 19 of the CRC Program. MinEx CRC was announced a fortnight earlier. Two shortlisted bids, Smarter Farming CRC and Future Ageing CRC were not funded. The Federal Government will provide a total of over $160 million investment in the four CRCs, with participants bringing the total to over half a billion dollars of R&D investment in Australia’s future.

Each of the new CRCs cover major issues for the future of Australia. We waste up to half the food we produce; Australia’s rate of discovery of mineral deposits has dramatically fallen in recent times; our future energy mix will be substantially different to the present and perhaps 8-10% of the national $150 billion spend on health is lost in transaction costs. Each CRC will undertake a program designed to make significant inroads to these major national issues. They’ll be judged by the impact they make.