Who is eligible to apply?
- To be eligible for EIIF support, the organisation/s applying for EIIF must:
- Be a university or publicly funded research organisation (PFRO), or their collaborative entities OR
- Be a NSW-located National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) facility or other openly accessible research facility OR
- Be a private firm/s that operate openly accessible R&D and innovation infrastructure OR
- Be a consortium-based application, that includes industry organisation or firms, universities and PFROs, public sector organisations or other organisations.
What are the eligibility requirements?
- Have an Australian Business Number (ABN)
- All single-entity applicants must be headquartered in NSW and/or have a major research/innovation presence located in NSW. If a proposal is consortium-based, the proposal lead must be headquartered in NSW. For the purpose of this Program, the following definitions for headquarters and major presence apply:
- Headquarters - the main administrative office of the applicant or facility and the location of the CEO. Headquarters must remain in NSW for the period of the Agreement
- Major presence - entities with a major research or innovation presence in NSW are those that retain 40 per cent (or more) of their researchers, developers or other innovation staff (total staff and PhDs, incl. part-time) in NSW for the period of the agreement.
- Be financially viable and able to demonstrate they are likely to remain so over the duration of the project
- Have the demonstrated skills and capacity to deliver the project
- Ineligible applicants include consortia or partnerships with businesses that are insolvent
- Ensure all grant monies are used on activities undertaken within NSW and on staff, students or equipment to be located in NSW.
Proposals that propose spending grant funding on partners, activities or items outside of NSW will not be eligible (other than the purchase of equipment to bring to NSW).
- Align to the industry, technology and innovation needs of the state for the applications synthetic biology, biomanufacturing (such as cell-based meats and other applications) and genetic engineering identified in the NSW 20-Year R&D Roadmap
Not based in NSW?
All single-entity applicants must be headquartered in NSW and/or have a major research/innovation presence located in NSW. If a proposal is consortium-based, the proposal lead must be headquartered in NSW. For the purpose of this Program, the following definitions for headquarters and major presence apply:
- Headquarters - the main administrative office of the applicant or facility and the location of the CEO. Headquarters must remain in NSW for the period of the Agreement
- Major presence - entities with a major research or innovation presence in NSW are those that retain 40 per cent (or more) of their researchers, developers or other innovation staff (total staff and PhDs, incl. part-time) in NSW for the period of the agreement.
What is a NSW Innovation Precinct?
It is desirable that projects be undertaken within, near or in association with a NSW Innovation Precinct.
The Innovation and Productivity Council defined an innovation precinct as “Geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. They are also physically compact, transit-accessible, and technically-wired and offer mixed use housing, office, and retail.”
The application will ask where you are located and how you connect to a precinct as described above.
What projects are eligible for funding?
Grant funds may be provided for any of the below which are directly targeted at driving translation, prototyping, testing and scale-up of synthetic biology and biomanufacturing products, and where it can be demonstrated that the activity will increase utilisation and industry outcomes:
- funding shared facilities, communal spaces, equipment and research infrastructure that connects industry and research, and drives informal exchanges of ideas, networks, and partnerships
- develop pilot and demonstration-scale synthetic biology/biomanufacturing facilities
- laboratory facilities improvement to facilitate industry access
- major equipment upgrades or replacement, or equipment to increase the ‘industry offering’ of the facility
- highly skilled technical experts where it can be shown that this enhances end-user access or outcomes from the equipment
- researcher access to different types and scales of bioreactors, precision fermentation, etc., that allow necessary scale-up and testing
- business development managers or industry application scientists employed by a university, research infrastructure facility or consortium to assist SMEs and companies to navigate the research pathways and access infrastructure
- industry-focused collaborative programs (including incubation and acceleration support) driving access to infrastructure and commercialisation, which can be joint across facilities
- programs supporting upskilling and professional development for students, graduates, and industry participants.
How much funding is available and for what project period?
Up to $6 million is available to the successful applicant(s), to be delivered within 2-4 years.
What are the selection criteria?
Applications will be assessed according to the criteria outlined below: | |
Criteria | Description |
Project impact in driving research, development, innovation, commercialisation and industry outcomes for synthetic biology and/or biomanufacturing |
|
Broader impact across the innovation ecosystem |
|
Track record of relevant delivery, experience or expertise to lead a public infrastructure project and/or support program |
|
Project delivery plan |
|
Who will assess my application? What is the assessment process?
The Office of the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer (OCSE) will assess application eligibility.
An Expert Panel made up of industry, academia and government representatives, separate to the OCSE, will assess the applications on a competitive and recommend applications for EIIF funding.
The Expert Panel reserves the right to engage with applicants, where appropriate to explore opportunities to collaborate between applicants.
The Expert Panel has discretion to recommend that an applicant receive a smaller amount of funding than they originally asked for.
What is the definition of 'Open Access'?
There is no strict requirement around what constitutes Open Access. The intent of the program is to support projects which can drive the development of the Synthetic Biology and Biomanufacturing sector in NSW broadly, by supporting multiple companies and researchers. This necessitates some degree of open access to the infrastructure, facilities, equipment and programs supported by the fund. In your application you will outline the operating model of your infrastructure, facilities and/or programs, indicating who has access to them, how many have access to them and any model for charging them. The model will be taken into consideration by the expert panel.
Examples: an accelerator indicating they will accept between five to eight startups every three to six months or a lab space indicating they can accept X number of companies, providing Ym2 of lab space to permanent residents, or offering rental or pay as you go for access to equipment.
Do you have any focus industries?
The fund is industry agnostic. Anything supporting the development of the Synthetic Biology and/or Biomanufacturing sectors can be considered, whether agrifood, climate, manufacturing, health etc.
How is impact measured?
There are no strict Key Performance Indicators or targets for impact which applicants must follow. Each application may define their own approach to demonstrating impact.
Examples of measurements or indicators of impact could be the number of companies supported per year, number of new spinouts, total R&D expenditure, jobs created, researchers trained, investment attracted into companies or the infrastructure/facilities/programs have supported. Extra export dollars generated.
My application is for infrastructure and facilities to benefit only my company/research group/project. Can I apply?
The aim of the project is to support the industry as a whole which is why it has emphasised shared facilities and open access.
Applications without an open access component to support more than one company/research group/project will not be supported.
There will be future grant programs to support commercialisation and infrastructure which may be more appropriate.