Last week (16 December) the Australian government announced the details for Selection Round 13 of the CRC Program. The Minister, Senator Kim Carr said applications from all industry and community sectors and research disciplines were invited to submit, however the two priority areas would be manufacturing innovation and social innovation. He suggested the areas closely fit the objectives of the program and are important priority areas for the Rudd Government and Australia. Below are the quotes from his media release.
“Manufacturing innovation can focus on traditional areas such as automotive, textile, footwear and clothing industries, or in new and emerging industries such as scientific and medical instruments, specialist engineering, aerospace, and advanced materials.
“Social innovation will target areas of major social challenge and will be interpreted broadly. Issues such as ageing, substance abuse, participation in education and sport are possible priority areas. Other areas include low socio-economic groups, rural and remote issues, and Indigenous Australians.
“The program will continue to support innovative research that relies on cross-disciplinary and collaborative approaches, to drive research solutions to the major challenges facing Australians today.”
As you’re aware, Round 13 is the round that we expected to re-bid for another term.
At first glance the priorities do not match our CRC well, however the Chairman and I will be discussing these ‘suggested priorities’ with our contacts in the CRC Program to further investigate the meaning for social innovation. The nominated taskforce will meet on 20 January 2010 to discuss whether or not we target Round 13 or Round 14and advise the Board accordingly.
Interestingly, Round 12 (the latest round) did not support any agriculture based CRCs, and Round 13 is suggesting a priority for manufacturing. Delaying our re-bid until Round 14 may improve our chances of success and has the advantage of giving us more time to prepare our application.
If the taskforce discussions recommend to delay the re-bid until Round 14, it will not mean we cease the current planning activities. As discussed in my Leaflet column, we will continue to build a very robust bid for another term which will be facilitated through the taskforce. As such, I encourage those that are considering new research objectives to continue their planning.
I will update as further detail becomes available.
Simon
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Welcome
Dear CRCNPB Participants and the wider biosecurity community
Welcome to my new blog which I hope will become the forum for creating greater two-way communication with both those directly involved in the CRC and those active in the wider biosecurity community.
My objective will be to raise key issues as they relate to plant biosecurity research and I seek your input.
The CRC has two large undertakings in the next six months; the Global Biosecurity 2010 conference and the development and submission of a re-bid. These will be a major focus on my blog.
I look forward to reading your posts and hope that this forum will achieve its goal of creating greater two-way communication within the biosecurity community.
Simon
Welcome to my new blog which I hope will become the forum for creating greater two-way communication with both those directly involved in the CRC and those active in the wider biosecurity community.
My objective will be to raise key issues as they relate to plant biosecurity research and I seek your input.
The CRC has two large undertakings in the next six months; the Global Biosecurity 2010 conference and the development and submission of a re-bid. These will be a major focus on my blog.
I look forward to reading your posts and hope that this forum will achieve its goal of creating greater two-way communication within the biosecurity community.
Simon
CRCNPB Re-bid
The Board and Participants of the CRC for National Plant Biosecurity have agreed to support the development of a re-bid proposal based on a plant biosecurity CRC.
As a first step the Board have formed a taskforce to assist them in developing the proposal. The taskforce consist of participant representatives (one each representing the grain industry/corporate (Dr Jody Higgins), national agencies (Dr Andy Sheppard), states (Dr Martin Barlass), horticulture industry (Mr Brad Wells), the regulatory agencies (Dr Shashi Sharma) and higher education sectors (Prof Giles Hardy), plus the Chairman and myself of the CRCNPB.
To assist the Board and Taskforce, I will use the blog over the coming months to raise issues and seek your feedback. It is my hope that this will assist in achieving a greater level of ownership among the full plant biosecurity community.
The key objectives of the Taskforce and Board over the next month are to identify the scope of the rebid and the titling of the re-bid. It is clear from the CRC Guidelines that the re-bid must be driven by end-users with the challenges clearly articulated.
Our current CRC has a very broad scope and some level of refinement is advisable as we develop a re-bid. The first step in refining the scope is a re-defining of the Programs to ensure they clearly address the challenges identified by end-users. In line with the CRC Guidelines we need to identify new research that has not been undertaken as part of the current CRC and this should represent at least 50% of the total research.
I seek your input as to how the scope could be re-defined and ideas for new research that would fit within this scope.
Throughout the current life of the CRCNPB it has often been difficult to attain full understanding of the term biosecurity by our various participants. The very close linkage between biosecurity and trade/market access is often not identified with many simply seeing the term biosecurity as relating to quarantine at the border and terrorism.
Trade/market access are the key focuses of our industry participants. It will be important that the re-bid clearly illustrates that one of the drivers for biosecurity is maintaining and allowing trade through maintenance of market access as well as food security and industry sustainability.
Your thoughts on re-titling of the CRC for the re-bid or a new tag-line to clearly articulate our purpose are sought.
As a first step the Board have formed a taskforce to assist them in developing the proposal. The taskforce consist of participant representatives (one each representing the grain industry/corporate (Dr Jody Higgins), national agencies (Dr Andy Sheppard), states (Dr Martin Barlass), horticulture industry (Mr Brad Wells), the regulatory agencies (Dr Shashi Sharma) and higher education sectors (Prof Giles Hardy), plus the Chairman and myself of the CRCNPB.
To assist the Board and Taskforce, I will use the blog over the coming months to raise issues and seek your feedback. It is my hope that this will assist in achieving a greater level of ownership among the full plant biosecurity community.
The key objectives of the Taskforce and Board over the next month are to identify the scope of the rebid and the titling of the re-bid. It is clear from the CRC Guidelines that the re-bid must be driven by end-users with the challenges clearly articulated.
Our current CRC has a very broad scope and some level of refinement is advisable as we develop a re-bid. The first step in refining the scope is a re-defining of the Programs to ensure they clearly address the challenges identified by end-users. In line with the CRC Guidelines we need to identify new research that has not been undertaken as part of the current CRC and this should represent at least 50% of the total research.
I seek your input as to how the scope could be re-defined and ideas for new research that would fit within this scope.
Throughout the current life of the CRCNPB it has often been difficult to attain full understanding of the term biosecurity by our various participants. The very close linkage between biosecurity and trade/market access is often not identified with many simply seeing the term biosecurity as relating to quarantine at the border and terrorism.
Trade/market access are the key focuses of our industry participants. It will be important that the re-bid clearly illustrates that one of the drivers for biosecurity is maintaining and allowing trade through maintenance of market access as well as food security and industry sustainability.
Your thoughts on re-titling of the CRC for the re-bid or a new tag-line to clearly articulate our purpose are sought.
Global Biosecurity 2010
Biosecurity has become a major economic issue of concern to governments, agricultural industries and environmental organisations worldwide. Despite its wide impact and complexities the opportunities for scientific exchange (among researchers and industry) has until now, been limited.
Global Biosecurity 2010:safeguarding agriculture and the environment will be held in Brisbane, Australia from 28 February until 3 March 2010. It will bring together a range of speakers from various organisations to discuss issues around this complex issue.
The Global Biosecurity 2010 conference program is in its final ‘tweaking’ stages and will soon be available on the conference website. In the meantime, you can view a full list of speakers and topics on the conference website
There will be a line up of keynote speakers from Australia, New Zealand and the United States who will share their experience and knowledge across a variety of agricultural and environmental biosecurity issues.
The social program includes a Welcome Reception on Sunday 28 February sponsored by Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. The conference dinner is the highlight of the social program which will be held on the Tuesday evening. The conference dinner will be hosted by Bernie Hobbs; a popular judge on ABC TV’s The New Inventors, and a firm favourite with audiences for her weekly science spots on ABC radio around the country.
The Organising Committee are very grateful for the support of the conference sponsors: Grains Research and Development Corporation, Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis and Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
With the number of registrations coming in, this is shaping up to be a very exciting event and a great platform to share ideas and exchange knowledge on current and new biosecurity science and practice.
I hope to see you there!
Global Biosecurity 2010:safeguarding agriculture and the environment will be held in Brisbane, Australia from 28 February until 3 March 2010. It will bring together a range of speakers from various organisations to discuss issues around this complex issue.
The Global Biosecurity 2010 conference program is in its final ‘tweaking’ stages and will soon be available on the conference website. In the meantime, you can view a full list of speakers and topics on the conference website
There will be a line up of keynote speakers from Australia, New Zealand and the United States who will share their experience and knowledge across a variety of agricultural and environmental biosecurity issues.
The social program includes a Welcome Reception on Sunday 28 February sponsored by Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. The conference dinner is the highlight of the social program which will be held on the Tuesday evening. The conference dinner will be hosted by Bernie Hobbs; a popular judge on ABC TV’s The New Inventors, and a firm favourite with audiences for her weekly science spots on ABC radio around the country.
The Organising Committee are very grateful for the support of the conference sponsors: Grains Research and Development Corporation, Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis and Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.
With the number of registrations coming in, this is shaping up to be a very exciting event and a great platform to share ideas and exchange knowledge on current and new biosecurity science and practice.
I hope to see you there!
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