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My name is John Grill and I am the Chair of the
National Precincts Board. Formerly, I was the
Chief Executive of the international resources and
energy company, WorleyParsons. My personal
expertise lies in every aspect of project delivery
of projects in the resources and energy industries
having been directly involved with most of the
major clients and closely involved at Board level
with the group's joint ventures. The National
Precincts Board is an industry-led board holding a
key role in overseeing and providing independent
advice to the Australian Government on the
recently announced $504.5 million Industry
Innovation Precincts Initiative. Possessing a
broad range of skills with an industry focus and a
relevance to precincts the Board will make
recommendations about the selection and operation
of new precincts, provide advice on the funding and
performance of individual precincts, assess
industry collaboration fund bids and provide
advice to the government on strategic precinct policy.
This initiative will create growth
opportunities for Australian firms in areas of
competitive advantage and emerging opportunity by
fostering the development of industry-led networks
and collaborations to enhance the competitiveness
of Australian business. The design of precincts
has been informed by consultation sessions held
with industry and researchers in March where we
received valuable insight. The first two industry
innovation precincts have been announced in the
manufacturing and food sectors. They will be
established in July 2013 and both are gaining
momentum quickly with a large amount of interest
from stakeholders. We will hear more about these
from the two chairs in the following video.
Up to another eight precincts will be selected through a
competitive selection process through 2013.
Applications from all Australian industries will
be open in May. All selected precincts will have core
partners including businesses and research providers.
Applicants that collaborate together to
bring together the relevant capability elements
will be best placed to bid for selection as a precinct.
An important aspect of any precinct is
that it will need to demonstrate that it has the
capacity and capability to grow and can
demonstrate that it will have a significant impact
on the Australian economy. An Online Collaboration
Register has been developed to assist with the
formation of partnerships and the engagement of
potential applicants. It will allow parties to
identify themselves as being interested in a
precinct's bid in a specific sector. Using the
register is not mandatory, rather an adjunct to the
collaborations and networks that exist in the industry.
The second component of the precinct's
initiative the Industry Innovation Network will be
established to assist in overcoming the challenges
of distance. It will help build both physical and
virtual groupings of organisations to create
critical mass to exploit market opportunities
domestically and internationally. Precincts will
be able to share knowledge create connections
innovate collaboratively and gain access to talent,
ideas and research that may otherwise be hard to find.
The third component of the initiative the
Industry Collaboration Fund will be a competitive
merit based program which will encourage and build
on business-led collaborations within precincts.
It will commence in 2013-14 and will have an
allocation of up to $130 million over four years
with up to $50 million available in the fourth year.
The fund will only be open to precincts and
will provide grants ranging between $100,000 and
$10 million. Prospective collaborators will be
able to work with precincts once they are
established to identify, prioritise and support
projects under the fund. Additional funding is
available through the Australian Research Council - ARC
Industrial Transformation Research Program - ITRP
that has a relationship with the precincts.
The ITRP will fund projects in the precinct
priority areas. For further information on the
operation of the ITRP please contact the ARC.
This is an exciting initiative which puts industry in
the driver's seat as the best source of knowledge
on how to drive innovation to create growth
opportunities for Australian firms for the benefit
of all Australians. I encourage you to take
advantage of the opportunity to submit an
application to drive the growth of your industry
through collaboration and leadership.
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