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CRC funding is a significant public investment in Australia’s future. Applying signals, you are ready to commit real time, money and long-term relationships to improve Australian industries. Unfortunately, many capable teams significantly underestimate what it takes to write a strong application for a CRC that delivers impact over a decade.

From an assessment perspective, successful applications do several things well. They answer the grant questions directly, they demonstrate genuine industry leadership and need, they explain how national benefit will be achieved, and they prove the collaboration can function through uncertainty. From my experience as a former Manager of the CRC Program reviewing applications and sitting in the assessment room, understanding these lessons early can materially change how an application is designed, written and presented at an interview.

Answer the question being asked

The CRC grant opportunity guidelines and assessment criteria are a set of very specific questions aligned to Government policy. They are designed to test whether a consortium understands the intent of the CRC program and can deliver against it.

Strong applicants respond in plain English, in a structure that mirrors the questions. They are explicit about what will be done, who will do it, how it will be governed, and how success will be measured. They do not rely on implied logic, buried detail, or broad claims without evidence.

At Stage 2, this matters even more. The CRC Advisory Committee's questions signal what the Committee sees as uncertain or underdeveloped. Address them directly in your updated application and in the interview pitch. Your interview should show what has improved since Stage 1. Treat the interview as a leadership test as assessors watch how you share airtime, make decisions in the moment, and answer as a unified team with a shared purpose.

Be clear about the industry-led platform you are building

CRCs are meant to be industry-led, and their leadership must be grounded in a clearly articulated industry need. This is not demonstrated by including industry logos on a consortium list or letters of support at the end of your application.

Strong applications describe the platform they are building for industry and the problem it is designed to solve. They articulate the issue or opportunity industry cannot address alone, why it matters now, why it has not been resolved to date, and what happens if it remains unresolved. They show who in the industry is driving the agenda, how industry priorities shape the research program, and how results will be translated into practice. Further, they have done their research and understand the international landscape and don’t seek to repeat earlier industry trials or failures.

Industry partners should appear throughout the application as active leaders in governance, investment and delivery. If you cannot clearly explain the industry need and how the industry is leading the response, it is difficult to convince assessors that the CRC will deliver impact at scale and sustain it beyond the funding period.

Read the full article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-assessors-really-looking-your-crc-application-75dgc/

A few observations on Round 26 CRC and Round 18 CRC-Project outcomes. Most notably, only a single CRC was funded, the lowest ever. However, Round 18 of the CRC-Ps delivered more than $66 million across 27 Projects, well above the usual recent CRC-P round size of $30 million to $50 million.

To me, that says something important about where the Minister and the CRC Advisory Committee see the strongest opportunities. They will move to where they see the highest-quality applications and the strongest industry pull. Right now, that seems to have translated into materially more money flowing into CRC-Projects.

Does that mean CRCs are a model of the past? Not at all. I do think we’ve seen far too many bids that put too much emphasis on developing a funding mechanism rather than a CRC that truly addresses big industry issues. The bar is meant to be high, and CRCs are meant to address really big issues. So I think it's actually a good thing if the Committee and Minister hold everyone to that standard. I’m interpreting the CRC outcome as the system becoming less tolerant of vague ambition (work out the details once we get the money) and more interested in well-formed, industry-shaped propositions with real commitment behind them.

CRC-Ps are much more oriented to individual businesses and specific, shorter-term goals. The quality of the successful bids in Round 18 looks outstanding. They are in very high demand, and the breadth and depth of applications really is healthy.

UNSW and RMIT once again showed they are the unis that truly ‘get’ the CRC-P program, doing well along with the University of Melbourne. The new Adelaide University ranks fourth overall across the rounds to date. Good performances from QUT and UTS in the round. Of course, no university ‘wins’ a CRC-P, but involvement is a big deal. Extraordinary to me that some big name unis can't manage to average involvement in a single CRC-P per round.

A CRC-P is not a mini-CRC.

I've written on this before, but with Minister Tim Ayres set to announce both CRCs and CRC-Ps soon*, it might be useful to some.

Despite the name, a CRC-P is fundamentally different to a Cooperative Research Centre. The CRC Program began in 1991. Almost from the first review, there was discussion about whether CRCs needed a “step-up” or “step-down” mechanism — something lighter than a full CRC but still structured collaboration. (The old idea of “Slatyer Centres” was one such concept.) It wasn’t until the Miles Review (2014-15) that CRC-Ps were born. The first CRC-P round concluded in 2016. Since then, we’ve a further 17 rounds (round 18 completed but outcomes not yet announced). The $3 million ceiling is enough to make a real difference.

Over time, CRC-Ps have evolved. Early rounds were often academic-led with strong company links. Now the majority of successful bids are company-initiated. That’s healthy. Both CRCs and CRC-Ps work best when industry drives the problem. There are some key differences:

1️⃣ CRCs are industry platforms. CRC-Ps are company-centred. CRCs address whole-of-industry challenges over a decade. CRC-Ps are shorter, sharper and tied to the needs of specific companies.

2️⃣ Collaboration is not cosmetic. A CRC-P requires at least two companies. Adding a second firm at the last minute to meet eligibility rules — an “appendix company” — weakens the bid and often the project itself. The collaboration has to be real, purposeful and integrated.

3️⃣ Governance still matters. You don’t need a full CRC governance architecture. But you do need clarity on roles, IP arrangements, financial oversight, milestone discipline, and active participation from all partners. Weak governance is one of the quiet reasons projects struggle.

4️⃣ It must be genuine R&D. CRC-Ps are not a government subsidy for the next commercial rollout. They are research-based collaborations solving technical uncertainty. Particularly for start-ups: this is not simply non-dilutive capital. That said, when used properly, CRC-Ps can be transformative — and I’ve seen VC-backed firms use them very effectively.

As we head into the next round, a key question for applicants should be: Is this a real collaborative R&D challenge, or is the "collaboration" just a link to meet the funding criteria? Don't wait until the round is open to develop the collaborations - they need a deep understanding and trust to have a chance in a competitive funding environment.

*"Soon" might be some way off. The Minister is due to front the National Press Club on March 25th. Maybe he'll wait till then to make announcements? No doubt he'll be responding to the Strategic Examination of R&D, and perhaps we'll see programs revamped. Given that Senator Ayres has pointed to the need for the private sector to lift its game, I would hope the CRC-Ps are featured, as they certainly encourage private investment.

Three Round 26 CRC bids presented their final cases in Canberra a couple of weeks ago. Now comes the hard part — the long wait. With luck, it’s weeks, not months.

Meanwhile, planning for Round 27 (and even Round 28) is already well underway. If the recent pattern holds — with rounds opening in March 2025, January 2024 and January 2023 — the next round could launch sooner than many expect.

And when it opens, there’s not a lot of breathing room. Stage 1 rounds usually stay open for only 7–8 weeks. That’s just enough time to pull the paperwork together, but nowhere near enough time to build genuine collaboration or trust.

Rushing companies to sign up in the final weeks is a guaranteed trust-killer. The strong bids are almost always the ones that have been quietly building relationships, refining problems, and aligning partners for a year or more before the guidelines even drop.

What’s interesting this time is the shift in activity. Instead of the dozen or so bids we used to see like clockwork, it looks like we’ve settled down to maybe half a dozen serious contenders. The Strategic Examination of R&D might be part of the story, but pressure on companies, industry bodies and universities is at least as significant. By my count, roughly eight bids are circulating in one form or another — though a couple of their websites are looking decidedly lifeless at the moment.

If you’re working on a Round 27 (or 28) CRC concept, or if your organisation is being approached, feel free to get in touch.

The government’s new National AI Plan, just released by Tim Ayres and Andrew Charlton, includes a “CRC AI Accelerator” — but what does that actually mean?

Our experience is that top-down, government-mandated CRCs have had a mixed track record. They can work brilliantly when aligned with genuine industry pull, and fall flat when there's a hint of government money that triggers an academic feeding frenzy.

What this announcement sounds like, however, is not a new full-blown CRC but a special CRC-Project round (or rounds) focused on accelerating AI development in companies. This is a much cleaner (and certainly a lot faster) way than funding a full CRC.

CRC-Projects are large enough to make a significant difference and can provide a substantial boost to a company, allowing it to collaborate with deep technologists. Funding a series of them in a specific area is a smart way to boost national capability.

We’ve seen similar themed rounds before in areas like developing Northern Australia and advanced manufacturing. I hope the AI Plan allows for additional funding for the boost, rather than a carve-out from the already highly competitive CRC-P program. We will hear more details in due course. But companies with deep AI capability and a desire to collaborate with research organisations might want to get themselves ready. It might be a brilliant opportunity.