Victorians get $60 million for innovation infrastructure

The Victorian State Government will fund another round of the Science Technology Innovation Infrastructure Grants program (STII), providing $60 million to support biomedical, environmental, agricultural, manufacturing and ICT infrastructure projects.

"The Government believes very strongly that we have a responsibility to back our research community, to invest in innovation and research and to drive the commercialisation of research," Innovation Minister John Brumby said in a statement.

The first two rounds of the program, which have funded 32 initiatives including Neurosciences Victoria, Clinical Trials Victoria, the Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), the Bundoora Plant Science Facility and the Victorian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, the Victorian Bioinformatics Consortium, the Victorian Microarray Technology Consortium among others, have facilitated more than $600 million in new private and public investment on the back of the $120 million investment from the government.

Funding will be available for three infrastructure categories: physical capital -- purpose-built facilities, laboratories, machinery and equipment; human and social capital -- skilled personnel, including scientists, engineers, R&D managers and entrepreneurs together with the supporting networks; and structural capital -- governance structure, management and administrative arrangements.

Preliminary applications will be due at the end of July. Successful applicants will be announced in April 2005, and funding will commence by July 2005.