CSIRO has been allocated $3 billion in a new new Quadrennial Funding Agreement that will operate over the four years from 2011.

 

Over the next financial year, however, direct Federal funding for CSIRO will drop back from $730 million last year to $725 million.

 

In a budget statement, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, said that finding the funding for CSIRO in this year’s budget had been difficult, but “it demonstrates the value the Government places on this important institution”.

 

Senator Carr said that the CSIRO funding was in addition to commissions worth more than $100 million annually to assist the work of Australian Government departments.

 

In total, CSIRO is expected to raise $573.7 million from other independent sources.

 

He said that the new CSIRO’s Strategic Plan, to be launched in July this year, would focus the organisation’s work on building an integrated national picture of carbon, water and land use; maintaining Australia’s bio-security; enhancing national productivity and supporting the growth of the digital economy; and addressing the key national and global challenges of food security, clean energy, climate change and preventative health.