The 2026 Budget will sink the flagship program to support university research from lab to market.
The government will cancel $800m in uncommitted funds for Australia’s Economic Accelerator, half the original program outlay and redeploy them to other research programs.
The news coincided with an announcement from Industry Minister Tim Ayres of an “additional” $387m for the CSIRO over five years. It follows a campaign against job cuts by CSIRO staff and supporters in the Senate. On the basis of the announcement on Saturday, this is additional to $278m in new money announced across 2025. However, whether this will increase CSIRO applied research or assist with its capital program was not apparent yesterday.
Australia’s Economic Accelerator was a Morrison Government program, supported by Labor in Opposition and continued in Government. It followed a cumbersome committee investigation on how universities and industry partners could better bridge the “valley of death” from lab trial and prototype testing to a market ready product or service, with advice from industry experts through three-stage funding. By the end of 2024, however the Accelerator’s oversighting board was proposing seven changes to deal with “barriers” to “increasing the translation and commercialisation of university research.”
Even so, the Accelerator stopping suddenly is widely deplored. Not least by researchers working on bids. “Funding for new projects through AEA will not continue beyond the 2025–26 financial year,” the Department of Education announces. This is a “clear message from the Government that the translation of university research is not its priority, and complete disregard of the time spent by a large group of highly qualified people across the country while planning and preparing their application", ANU physicist Ilya Shadrivov responded on LinkedIn.
But Luke Sheehy from Universities Australia recognised reality. “While this decision is disappointing, it is not entirely unexpected in the current fiscal environment. The pressure on the Budget is intense, and all portfolios are clearly being asked to find savings.”
But Mr Sheehy added savings should stay in commercialising research functions, maintaining momentum for the Strategic Examination of Research and Development. Which might happen. The SERD review recommended Economic Accelerator funding be kicked into the pool it wants for the proposed National Innovation Council.
But as to the Budget, Ministers had bit of issue-avoidance luck last week, with a regular release of research funding numbers by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for 2022-2024 they can point to. Total Commonwealth Government research grants were up 15%, to $5.2bn.