Scott Morrison National Press Club address: PM to announce $2bn research plan for Australia

Scott Morrison will use a highly-anticipated speech to announce a big plan to stop Australia underperforming in a crucial area.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will unveil a new $2bn plan to ensure early-stage research progresses to the “next level” of commercial success in Australia in a bid to boost the nation’s post-Covid economic recovery.

Mr Morrison is expected to announce major new research programs in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday that he’ll say aims to build on work done to increase manufacturing capability and create greater supply chain resilience in Australia.

“We now need to better link and leverage our world class research sector to boost these efforts,” Mr Morrison is expected to say.

“Eighty-five per cent of Australian research is rated at or above world standard.

“Yet we continue to underperform in achieving commercialisation outcomes.”

The “cornerstone” of the plan will be a $1.6bn fund to fix an issue in Australia where early-stage research is not progressed to later stages of development because of the risk and uncertainty around commercial returns.

Called Australia’s Economic Accelerator, the program will provide funding opportunities to projects at proof of concept or proof of scale level that have high potential.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will announce details of a $2bn plan. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“When it comes to driving commercialisation outcomes, the key policy challenge concerns the so-called ‘valley of death’ – where early stage research is frequently not progressed to later stages of development because of the risk and uncertainty about commercial returns,” Mr Morrison will say.

“We know this is not insurmountable. Other countries have made a better fist of solving this problem and the government’s expert panel made a point of looking at this evidence in detail.”

The fund will work by providing funding at different levels of a project as long as researchers can prove the viability and commercial potential.

Stage one will aim to capture a large number of ideas, while stage two will require “more skin in the game” from industry.

The third stage will be managed through an existing CSIRO fund that was created to support Australian start-ups.

The Prime Minister said one key challenge was getting early-stage research to later stages so it is commercially viable. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

This fund will be expanded with a further $150m investment in order to accelerate venture capital investment in research and development so high-value opportunities can be taken to market.

Mr Morrison will also announce $296m to go toward 1800 new industry PhDs and 800 fellowships to create a “new generation of research entrepreneur”.

The $2bn was factored into the mid-year budget update released earlier this year under “decisions taken but not yet announced”.

“This is not an election promise, these are funded programs already in the budget, incorporated into the mid-year budget update,” Mr Morrison will say.

These latest announcements build on the $247m in funding that will go to four universities to build their commercialisation capacity, which was announced in November.