The leader of Australia’s $1.6 billion university research commercialisation tilt will be revealed within weeks, along with a board tasked with formulating a five-year strategy and investment plan.
Education minister Jason Clare is finalising the appointment of a chair and advisory board for Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) program after receiving recommendations from his department.
It comes as Industry minister Ed Husic also finalises the leadership of the National Reconstruction Fund, which will guide the AEA with seven national priority areas like renewables technologies, defence and value-add in the resources sector.
Australia’s Economic Accelerator gated research funding will only go to projects within the priority areas that have translation or commercialisation potential in an effort to build out the research ecosystem across the ‘valley of death’ toward end users.
But exactly how the funding will be split up and the program’s direction will be determined by a new AEA Advisory Board.
The board will write a five-year Research Commercialisation Strategy to outline the “vision, aims and objectives” for translating and commercialising the priority area research, while also identifying the particular technologies being targeted and barriers to be overcome.
The advisors – to be chosen by Mr Clare – will also be responsible for an AEA Investment Plan with policies covering the total amount of funding for specific areas of national priority.
The new group directs how an initial $432 million in funding over four years will be spread across the priority areas of the National Reconstruction Fund, which will pour another $15 billion into the seven areas through equity investments, loans and guarantees.
A spokesperson for the Education department confirmed Mr Clare is now considering recommended candidates.
“The government has received a list of candidates for consideration in the important positions of Chair and advisory board members, with selection expected to be finalised soon,” the spokesperson told InnovationAus.com.
“The development of a strategy and investment plan will be a decision for the advisory board, and will released during the 2023/24 financial year.”
InnovationAus.com understands Mr Clare will announce the Chair and AEA Advisory board within weeks.
The pilot phase of the AEA program offering the initial Seed grants of $500,000 is now operating without the board.
It suffered an early setback when the department was inundated with hundreds of grant applications seeking ten-times the available funding.
The volume of applications has pushed the pilot phase back at least a month but the AEA’s full ‘Ignite’ and ‘Innovate’ programs are still expected to commence in “the near future”, the spokesperson said.
Under the full program successful applicants will have access to industry experts known as Priority Managers, who will help foster connections and secure formal industry collaboration on the projects.
Successful projects will be able to apply for further funding through the CSIRO Innovation Fund Main Sequence Ventures.
Legislation to enact AEA passed Parliament in March, but had been drafted more than a year ago after the former government launched the overarching Research Commercialisation Action Plan.
