Funding for short-term, industry-led research collaborations

The CRC Program supports industry-led collaborations between industry, researchers and the community. It’s a proven way to link researchers with industry. The focus is on research and development that will have commercial uses.

The program aims to:

• improve the competitiveness, productivity and sustainability of Australian industries, especially where Australia is competitive and in government priority areas
• use high quality research to solve industry-identified problems
• encourage and help SMEs to take part in collaborative research

You’re not eligible to apply as the lead applicant if you’re:

• an individual, partnership or trust
• a research organisation or an entity whose primary purpose is to undertake research
• a Commonwealth, state, territory or local government agency or body (including government business enterprises)
• an entity where most of your funding is from government sources, for example grant programs
• an administrative or support service to a CRC-P.

We’ll assess your application against the eligibility criteria first. Only eligible applications proceed to the merit assessment stage.

The independent CRC Advisory Committee will then assess your application against the assessment criteria. They’ll compare it to other applications before recommending which projects to fund. Your application must score highly against each assessment criterion to be recommended for funding.

The evidence you provide to support your application should be proportional to the size and complexity of your project.

The Minister decides which grants to approve, taking into account the:

• recommendations of the committee
• availability of grant funds.

• Assessment criterion 1 - Project alignment with the program objectives (25 points)
• Assessment criterion 2 - The quality of your project (25 points)
• Assessment criterion 3 - Capacity, capability and resources to deliver your project (25 points)
• Assessment criterion 4 - Impact of the grant funding on your project (25 points)

For more information on the assessment criteria please refer to the grant opportunity guidelines.

If you’re successful, we’ll email you and include any specific conditions attached to the grant offer. If you’re unsuccessful, we’ll email you outlining the reasons why.

Successful applicants must enter into a grant agreement with the Commonwealth. The grant agreement will include:

• the payment schedule
• reporting requirements
• milestones you need to meet to get paid.

We’ll pay you quarterly in advance according to an agreed schedule in the grant agreement. We'll pay you directly into your nominated bank account.