$188.5M program with the aim to lift competitiveness and productivity by focusing on 5 areas of competitive strength.
About
The Industry Growth Centres aims to lift competitiveness and productivity by focusing on areas of competitive strength. This will help Australia transition into smart, high value and export focused industries.
Growth Sectors
Industry Growth Centres will be established to deliver the Initiative in five growth sectors in which Australia already has a competitive advantage:
- Advanced Manufacturing;
- Food and Agribusiness;
- Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals;
- Mining Equipment, Technology and Services; and
- Oil, Gas and Energy Resources.
The Growth Centres will also facilitate engagements between enabling services and technologies, such as Information and Communications Technology, where they provide essential and direct support to the growth sectors.
Priorities
While the Industry Growth Centres will be flexible in their approach to addressing barriers to success, they will be tasked with looking at four broad themes:
- encouraging collaboration and the commercialisation of new products;
- enhancing management and improving workforce skills;
- identifying opportunities to reduce regulatory burden ; and
- improving capabilities to engage with international markets and global supply chains.
Activities
Overarching activities that all Industry Growth Centres will complete include:
- Development and implementation of a roadmap to lift sector competitiveness;
- Provision of advice to Government on how to best reduce regulatory burden within their sector; and
- Development of annual industry knowledge priorities to help inform the research sector of industry needs and commercialisation opportunities.
Some examples of activities that the Industry Growth Centre’s may undertake are:
- The food and agribusiness Growth Centre may assist food manufacturers to work with packaging companies and researchers to consider packaging solutions to extend the shelf life of products, especially into regional export markets where the lack of refrigeration is a problem;
- The mining equipment, technology and services (METS) Growth Centre may identify global market opportunities to enable establishment of METS consortiums to target opportunities with product and service export packages and access to information on global supply chains;
- Through the medical technologies and pharmaceuticals Growth Centre, businesses may be assisted to identify new opportunities through linking with medical device and materials researchers to develop new biomedical devices and platform technologies to improve health outcomes and business profitability;
- The advanced manufacturing Growth Centre could bring together industry and Australia’s established research and development capabilities in advanced and composite materials to bring to market new products where the performance of these new materials improves product design, performance and fabrication. The Centre could also work with other countries to agree international standards for new technologies to improve regulatory certainty and facilitate industry innovation;
- The oil, gas and energy resources Growth Centre may assist businesses to lower costs through greater collaboration, better sharing of infrastructure and logistics support (especially on remote projects), greater development and uptake of new technology and innovation, and improved planning across all areas of the resources value chain.
Funding
The Industry Growth Centres are ongoing with $188.5 million in Australian Government funding.
Latest News
A new industry-led Growth Centre has been launched for the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector.
Industry Growth Centres are not-for-profit organisations that aim to improve the productivity and competitiveness of a sector.
The Growth Centres will develop strategies to help:
- improve collaboration with researchers and increase commercialisation
- improve engagement with international markets and global supply chains
- enhance management and workforce skills
- reduce regulatory burden.
The METS Growth Centre will be led by a board of industry leaders, and will work with the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction to ensure research outcomes meet the needs of the METS sector.
The Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre was launched in August 2015.
Additional Growth Centres are also being established for the sectors of:
- Food and Agribusiness
- Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals
- Oil, Gas and Energy Resources.
