research program announced for higher education sector

Draft guidelines for the Collaborative Research Network (CRN) program were released last week for comment by the higher education sector.

The CRN program, announced in the 2009-10 Budget, is a new initiative to encourage Australian universities to work closer together. It will provide $114.1 million over six years from 2010-11. The initial round will provide up to $51 million from 2011 until mid 2013 to help less research-intensive smaller and regional universities develop their research capacity by teaming up with other institutions in areas of common interest.

Universities can provide comments on the draft guidelines until 15 June 2010.

The program guidelines will be finalised in time to allow applications from eligible universities to apply for grants under the CRN program from July.

The draft guidelines are available here