CHEMISTRY

In announcing its research priorities for 2006/7 and beyond this week, CSIRO has signalled a substantial increase in its investment in research and development in information and communication technologies (ICT). Deputy Chief Executive Ron Sandland said that the increased resources will strengthen CSIRO's capabilities in several critical research areas. "For example, we will develop technologies for the monitoring and management of water resources through a large scale sensor network - the Water Resources Observation Network (WRON) - which by 2010 will enable better management of water through more accurate monitoring of water resources across Australia," Dr Sandland said. "We will be reaching for the sky by building a new radio astronomy facility (xNTD) in WA which will improve survey speed by a factor of 30. With other infrastructure this will increase Australia's chances of being identified in 2006 as the best site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)." ICT and mathematical sciences will have an increase in budget of around $7.8 million, with recruitment of up to 30 scientists and engineers. The CSIRO ICT Centre will see its budget increase by over 14% to $48M in 2006/07, which includes a substantial increase in its involvement in National Research Flagships ($5.3M to $12.7M) to address research issues of national significance. Director of the ICT Centre, Dr Alex Zelinsky, said that this increased investment will allow the Centre to consolidate and expand its world competitive research activities in areas such as ICT for mining automation, enterprise information tools, e-research and e‑health as well as establishing a substantial new activity in ICT for safeguarding Australia. "The ICT Centre will continue to focus on research that delivers viable commercial results for industry and society through forming partnerships across CSIRO, Australia and the world," says Dr Zelinsky. "Last year we created a new company, Epitactix, and already this year we have created a spin-off to commercialize our Panoptic search technology." "We are also planning to expand into Tasmania, where we will partner with Tasmanian industries to create a new Centre funded by CSIRO and the Federal Government's Intelligent Island Program."