Australia’s national science agency has recently announced three new missions to combat what they call “Australia’s Greatest Challenges”. Six areas of challenge have been identified by the CSIRO. Each has been matched with a relevant and concise goal, and together, they affect all areas of the country:

• Food Security and Quality: Achieve sustainable regional food security and grow Australia’s share of premium Agrifood markets.
• Health and Wellbeing: Help enhance health for all through preventative, personalised, biomedical, and digital health services.
• Resilient and Valuable Environments: Enhancing the resilience, sustainable use, and value of our environments, including by mitigating and adapting the impacts of climate and global change.
• Sustainable Energy and Resources: Build regional energy and resource security and our competitiveness while lowering emissions.
• Future Industries: Help create Australia’s future industries and jobs by collaborating to boost innovation performance and STEM skills.
• A Secure Australia and Region: Help safeguard Australia from risks (war, terrorism, regional instability, pandemics, biosecurity, disasters, and cyber attacks).

Alongside existing missions, which can be found on the CSIRO website (www.csiro.au/en/about/challenges-missions/Missions) , the organisation has announced that they will be undertaking new activity to assist Australia’s Agriculture sector. New missions have been highlighted as:

• Drought Resilience; to reduce the impact of Australian droughts by 30% by 2030.
• Agrifood Exports; to increase the value of Australian food exports by $10 billion by 2030.
• Future Protein; to grow Australia’s protein industry and produce an additional $10 billion of new products by 2030.

Australia’s Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Mr. Christian Porter, has released a statement championing the CSIRO’s efforts.

“The CSIRO’s Missions program is about using innovative science and technology to reach beyond what is possible today to solve Australia’s greatest challenges, and this is certainly the aim of these three missions. CSIRO will play a crucial role in fostering collaboration with government, industry, and the research sector to drive innovation and deliver strong outcomes for the whole Australian Agriculture sector, leading to economic growth and job creation.”

The CSIRO has committed $79 million to their new missions and has attracted significant government contributions for further assistance as each mission progresses. The agency regularly reaches out with opportunities for partnerships as they work towards solving the aforementioned challenges:

“Forming partnerships with other organisations – including universities, private, and public organisations – to progress research and development activities allows all parties involved to draw on the team’s collective experience, skills, and resources to achieve results.”

Partnership opportunities can be viewed on their website (www.csiro.au/en/work-with-us/ip-commercialisation/seeking-partners).

For more in-depth information on work currently being undertaken by the CSIRO, take a look at their home website: www.csiro.au .