Research revamp recommended

Researchers have welcomed a new plan by the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research in Australia to boost funding to the sector. Tony Peacock says if the recommendations are accepted we will see a decade of major cultural change in the medical research scene in Australia.

CRC boost a success for Australian innovation

Cooperative Research Centres were established in Australia in 1990 to enhance Australia’s economic growth through an injection of Commonwealth research funding. CEO Prof Tony Peacock shows how important they are to Australia’s global innovation success.

Australia’s unique Cooperative Research Centres Program received a boost recently, with the Innovation Minister announcing that six CRCs had been successful in the 14th funding round of the program.

Most observers thought a good result would be if four or five of the shortlisted 10 proposals received a funding offer, so six is a great result. Four continuing CRCs were funded along with two new centres.

Improving the level of debate about population and innovation

Tony Peacock, CEO of the CRC Association and a Professor at the University of Canberra, delivered the following speech to Global Access Partner’s National Economic Review: Australia’s Annual Growth Summit in Sydney on Friday 16 September 2011.

Innovation is the single most important component of long-term growth, and innovation and population have always been entwined.

Thirty thousand years ago better rock flake production enabled certain Indian groups to vastly improve hunting success and thus increase their population. The domestication of livestock and cereal production, of course, also allowed for much greater populations to develop.