High hopes for merger of SIRCA and the CMCRC

Two highly successful university-backed financial market research groups will merge in pursuit of even greater achievements.

From left, SIRCA CEO David Sharp, federal Workplace and Deregulation Minister Craig Laundy, and acting Group CEO of CMCRC David Wright.

In today’s Higher Ed Daily Brief: SIRCA’s success story, new honour for Downer

High hopes for merger

One of Australian universities’ big success stories is in the news today with the announcement that the Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia-Pacific (SIRCA) will merge with the Capital Market Cooperative Research Centre (CMCRC).

SIRCA, which is owned by 35 member universities in Australia and New Zealand, was originally founded in 1997 to supply financial market data to academic researchers. It became much more than that when SIRCA developed the globally used product now known as Thomson Reuters Tick History, a massive data base of financial market transactions.

The aim of the merger with CMCRC is to create an organisation with a powerful ability to translate financial market research into practical applications. The new body will have about 70 industry partners, 50 universities, over 250 experts and 12 companies to call on.

Federal Workplace and Deregulation Minister Craig Laundy praised the move. “It’s not just vertical integration, it’s horizontal integration at the same time, which will provide some real grunt, especially when it comes to data and data analytics, training PhD students, and collaboration with industry.”

“What this merger will deliver to this country moving forward, not just for the PhD students moving up and out into the world, and the benefits that we’ll have as a country moving forward, is limited only by your imagination. You’re the sort of people we in government wish we could find more of to back,” Mr Laundy told the two groups.

Now it’s Dr Downer

Being Australia’s longest serving foreign minister (1996-2007) has its rewards. Alexander Downer is to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Adelaide. Of course his CV is also loaded with his other distinguished history — former federal Opposition leader, high commissioner to London, special adviser to the UN, political lobbyist and board member of the Australian arm of giant Chinese telco maker Huawei.

Not to mention that his father and grandfather were also members of parliament and held ministerial office. Grandfather Sir John Downer was twice South Australian premier. And if all goes well for the Downer family, Alex’s daughter Georgina will be elected the federal member for Mayo (her father’s old seat) at the July 28 by election.