Cooperative Research Australia (CRA) has welcomed the release of the Ambitious Australia report, the final report of the Strategic Examination of Research and Development (SERD), while urging careful implementation to protect existing research capabilities.
“The Ambitious Australia report’s core ambition to drive greater focus, scale, and national impact from Australia’s research and innovation investment is one Cooperative Research Australia has long advocated,” CRA CEO Jane O’Dwyer said.
“Building on our R&D capacity and capability is essential to securing a resilient, diverse and innovative economy.”
CRA expressed support for the report’s recommendations, including the establishment of a national coordination body, reversing the decline in competitive grants, addressing the full indirect costs of university research, securing ongoing funding for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), reforming the R&D Tax Incentive, and encouraging government procurement that supports innovative firms.
“The proposed National Strategic Initiatives, which would bring government, industry, and researchers together around shared goals and co-investment, reflect principles that are immediately recognisable to anyone who knows Cooperative Research Centres,” O’Dwyer said.
“In many respects, the report proposes to create super CRCs — larger and more strategically focused on national priorities.”
While CRA supports the principles and goals, it emphasised the importance of maintaining continuity in existing programs. “The risk we are watching closely is disruption without investment,” O’Dwyer said.
“If existing programs delivering real outcomes are not built upon, Australia will lose capability that has taken decades to build.”
O’Dwyer highlighted the long-term contributions of Cooperative Research Centres and NCRIS facilities, noting that they provide not only tangible outputs such as commercial products and businesses but also critical human infrastructure, including industry-embedded PhD graduates, trained academics, and upskilled industry practitioners.
“Existing capacity should be the foundation of the new system, built upon and scaled,” she said. “The collective capacity of CRCs and post-CRCs, particularly in Agriculture and Food, Energy and Resources, and Technology, is immense and waiting to be better harnessed.”
CRA said it would work closely with the government as implementation plans develop. “We cannot assess implementation we have not yet seen,” O’Dwyer said.
“What we can say is that the principles are sound, the goals are right, and the model being proposed for National Strategic Initiatives reflects 35 years of what CRCs have demonstrated works.”
CRA and its members — including CRCs, post-CRCs, NCRIS facilities, universities, CSIRO, and R&D-active businesses — said they are ready to contribute their expertise to support the report’s vision for a more focused and ambitious Australian research and innovation system.
