Grants help Australian researchers and SMEs go global

Eighteen Australian researchers and 11 small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) will share in $1.4 million in government grants to meet and collaborate with global partners to progress their ideas.

Today I announced the grants, under the Global Connections Fund, which will provide seed funding to help viable Australian projects to grow in scope and scale, and to test commercialisation and proof-of-concept activities.

The Global Connections Fund, a component of the Global Innovation Strategy, provides funding of $4.9 million over four years to support Australian researchers and SMEs to collaborate with a global partner through its two components—Priming Grants and Bridging Grants.

The 29 grant recipients announced today will each receive up to $50,000 under the Bridging Grants component of the Global Connections Fund.

The recipients will collaborate with global partners from Austria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, India, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.

The $1.4 million funding assistance from the Australian Government will be leveraged to attract an additional $2.4 million in cash and in-kind contributions from the recipients and their international partners.

Examples of the projects being funded include:

• Victorian SME Anatomics Pty Ltd will work with a University in the US to design and validate 3D-printable prostheses for spinal surgery.
• Monash University will team up with a US company to develop a treatment for depression using magnetic fields.
• The University of Newcastle will partner with an SME in the UK, to evaluate chicken litter waste as a suitable way to produce methane.
• Researchers from RMIT will work with a company in Portugal, to develop a real-time muscle fatigue monitor.

More information about the Global Connections Fund is available at: http://www.globalconnectionsfund.org.au/