REINSTATEMENT OF PUBLIC GOOD TEST FOR CRCs OVERDUE
5 August 2008
The Government today released a comprehensive report on the Review of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program, which was conducted by an expert panel lead by Professor Mary O’Kane. The review, which forms part the Government’s Innovation Review, examined changes to the CRC program and made a number of important recommendations about how it could be improved to better meet it objectives.
Dr Carolyn Allport, National President of National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), made the following comments on the review.
“Firstly, the expert panel lead by Professor O’Kane should be congratulated on the thoroughness of the review, especially given the very short time frame involved.”
“The NTEU encourages the Government to adopt many of the Review’s recommendations, in particular the reinstatement of ‘public good’ as one of the primary objectives of the CRC program.”
“The NTEU strongly agrees with the review’s findings that under the previous Government the ownership and governance criteria for CRC funding became too restrictive and that too much emphasis was placed on the objective of commercialising CRC research, both of which acted as disincentives for universities and other publicly funded research agencies to become involved.”
“The NTEU believes that the primary test for CRC success should be in terms of its capacity to encourage greater collaboration between industry, universities and public research agencies in recognition of the social, cultural, and environmental, as well as economic, benefits that such collaboration is capable of delivering.”
For further comments please contact:
Paul Kniest, Policy and Research Coordinator (0418 170 622), pkniest@nteu.org.au