Govt announces $158m in funding for three new CRCs

Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic has allocated $158 million in federal government funding to three new Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs): the SMART CRC, Additive Manufacturing CRC and Care Economy CRC.

The three centres emerged from the highly competitive 25th round of the CRC program that funds medium- and long-term research. The grant decisions were made before the government was placed into caretaker mode last month but only announced by Husic last week.

The $238 million Solutions for Manufacturing Advanced Regenerative Therapies (SMART) CRC, which received a federal grant of $65 million over 10 years, is a national coordinated effort of 63 partners set to manufacture cures for cancer, heart diseases, arthritis and other age-related ailments. One of the aims of the CRC, which will be hosted at The University of Queensland (UQ), is to enable cost-effective manufacturing of personalised medical devices, helping Australian companies bring life-changing therapies to market.

Smart CRC Interim CEO Professor Simon Cool, from UQ’s School of Chemical Engineering, said bottlenecks in manufacturing currently hinder Australia’s access to curative regenerative therapies, with a “significant shortage of technical expertise in manufacturing, quality control, analytics and process development … standing in the way of transformative therapies benefiting Australians”.

He added, “The SMART CRC will directly target these gaps by harnessing the scientific and technological expertise of 63 partners and ensuring these next-generation treatments can be scaled up effectively, ready for use in the clinic.” Partners include Queensland and South Australian governments, regenerative therapy and biotechnology companies, healthcare providers, non-government organisations, universities and research institutes.

Interim Chair Dr Leanna Read said the SMART CRC would accelerate Australia’s regenerative therapy manufacturing ecosystem — from product innovation to supply chain and end users — anchoring companies and their technologies onshore instead of relying on foreign supply chains. Projects supported by the CRC will range from products close to commercialisation to high-impact platform technologies, with industry matching government and research funding.

The $270.5 million Additive Manufacturing CRC (AMCRC), meanwhile, is an industry-led collaborative research initiative that brings together 101 partners from industry, research and government to build a national additive manufacturing ecosystem spanning the entire value chain, using 3D printing to transform industry sectors including defence, aerospace, health care, automotive and construction. With $57.5 million in federal funding, the CRC will empower Australia’s manufacturing sector to tap into the country’s additive manufacturing research expertise, unlocking new opportunities for innovation, collaboration and market expansion.

As part of the CRC, Flinders University’s Medical Device Research Institute is supporting the development and commercialisation of state-of-the-art medical devices in collaboration with its industry partners. A key project involves partnering with Additive Surgical on the design and manufacture of cutting-edge, 3D-printed spinal implants.

“The AMCRC will transform additive manufacturing … from an approach that has predominantly been used for non-critical and prototype items to a method for mainstream manufacturing and on-demand production of high-performance, highly customisable precision parts and components,” said Flinders lead Professor David Lewis.

Professor Jochen Deuse, Director of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), will meanwhile lead research on digital twins, which allow for the virtual representation of physical objects that is critical to accurate 3D printing. He explained, “Our research aims to develop a new type of blueprint for digital twins that enables the simultaneous production of parts in additive manufacturing processes, and supports the seamless integration of design, planning, data management and shopfloor engineering processes.”

Finally, the Care Economy CRC is a $129 million, 10-year partnership of 60 organisations across Australia which will seek to revolutionise the care sector by customising and commercialising new technologies, data solutions and models of care. Located at La Trobe University, the CRC will foster collaboration with wide-ranging stakeholders from across Australia, including private and public companies, partner universities, councils of social service, regulators, government agencies, consumer peak bodies and community groups.

The industry-led research centre, which received $35 million in federal funding, will support the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the care sector, boosting their growth and contributing to the overall prosperity of care providers and outcomes for people in care. By supporting innovation and workforce efficiencies, the CRC should position Australia as a global leader in exportable care services, models, training and technologies.

Image caption: One of the aims of the SMART CRC is to enable cost-effective manufacturing of personalised medical devices. Image courtesy UQ.