The Australian Government will provide grant funding of $66.5 million to world-leading research to help build one of the largest solar power plants in the world in northwest New South Wales - creating jobs, strengthening industry-research partnerships and securing Australia's clean energy future. Announcing the Education Investment Fund (EIF) grant today, Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr [...]
The Government announced 4 Green Car Innovation Fund grants today which will bring new technologies, skills and job creation to Australian manufacturing. Over $6.2 million was awarded to component manufacturers CFusion, Toyoda Gosei Australia, Composite Materials Engineering and Hirotec. The components being developed to retool the automotive industry should help cars that are friendlier on the [...]
The Government announced today payments of $2.5m for 67 companies under the Government's Textile, Clothing and Footwear (TCF) Small Business Program to enable them to "refashion" their business enterprise culture with better business and management processes. In announcing the successful recipients, Senator Carr said "By updating business processes, the 67 businesses stand a better chance of [...]
The Government today received the crossbench Senators support for the R&D Tax Credit Scheme which means the scheme will commence from 1 July 2011. The $1.8 billion R&D Tax Credit Scheme will deliver more funding to innovative firms – including manufacturers, ICT and biotech – increasing productivity and Australia’s national income. The new and improved Credit will target more funds to [...]
Since its inception the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) has licensed 13 new venture capital innovation funds that have helped 99 Australian businesses commercialise original research. To date the IIF program has committed a pool of $524 million of government and private capital to invest in promising early-stage companies. Yesterday, the program received a tick from [...]
The Government today unveiled the $12.4 million Digital Enterprises initiative program to help small-to-medium businesses and not-for-profit organisations across Australia take advantage of the enormous online opportunities offered by the National Broadband Network (NBN). The Digital Enterprises initiative is a key element of the National Digital Economy Strategy. The program will provide advice to businesses in NBN [...]
The work of numerous Aussie inventors can now be accessed online thanks to the latest addition to AusPat, a database of patent records dating back to that first patent issued under Commonwealth legislation. The new information may help modern day innovators by making it easier to find patented inventions, and provide a pool of priceless information [...]
The Australian Government announced today 18 collaborative projects involving Australian and Indian scientists that have been awarded $5 million under the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund, with matching funding provided by the Government of India. Top scientists benefit from this multi-million dollar program with India that could lead to better vaccines, more temperature tolerant crops, healthier [...]
Last week, the Labor Government renewed its commitment for Commercialisation Australia, allocating $278 million over five years to the program. Commercialisation Australia will receive $82 million annually thereafter. Since it opened for business, Commercialisation Australia has invested $45 million in 115 projects. Twenty-nine companies, entrepreneurs and inventors have recently been awarded funding totaling $13 million through the Commercialisation Australia [...]
Blacktown City Council has installed a 50 kilowatt grid-connected solar electricity system at their Works Depot. The system, consisting of 276 photo-voltaic (PV) modules, is expected to feed an estimated 60 megawatt hours per year of electricity back into the grid, and save 70 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. Blacktown Solar City is one of seven [...]