Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McKenzie for her question about our important commitment to research and research investment, which, of course, is consistent with the government's strong commitment to innovation and science as a driver in our economy. Last week I was pleased to announce the Australian Research Council's major grants which included some $416.6 million in funding for 989 research projects that I would have thought all those in the chamber would welcome and support—research projects occurring in our world-class universities right across Australia.

The funding schemes supported by the Australian government as part of this announcement includes: the Discovery Projects for funding commencing in 2017, supporting some 630 different research projects to be funded for up to five years with $234.7 million in support; the Discovery Indigenous funding round, supporting 11 projects with $4.6 million in support; the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, funding of $71.7 million, supporting some 200 projects over three years; the Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grants, supporting some 48 different projects of $28.6 million investment; and, finally, the Future Fellowships funding, commencing in 2017, providing some $77 million in support for 100 projects.

These five crucial research grant schemes represent significant and important investment in Australian research. Their investment across a wide variety of both basic and applied research projects is undertaken by outstanding individual researchers in our world-class institutions that, of course, enjoy reputations that attract both students and researchers from around the world. This investment helps to drive Australia's innovative capacity and from that, of course, our future economic growth and job creation as part of a National Innovation and Science Agenda.