Current and previous recipients
In 2024 up to $15,000,000 (excluding GST) over three years (2023-26) was awarded in a single open round.
| Facility | Project | Priority | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
Microscopy Australia -Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis Partners: Microscopy Australia, AuScope, Rio Tinto Australia, Fortescue Metals Group, Hitachi Canada, NewSpec Australia, NewPro US, Global Bioeconomy Alliance, Centre for Solar Biotechnology, PYROSEARCH, UQ JKTech Pty Ltd, ThermoFisher Scientific ANZ, AXT Pty Ltd | Establish the Natural Resources Innovation & Characterisation Hub (NRICH) to address challenges, such as the increase in metal demand, higher sensitivity and mixed ore bodies for advanced batteries, renewable energy and quantum technologies, and recovery and recycling of mining waste and more demanding exploration and extraction opportunities for a circular economy. |
Renewable Energy Manufacturing and Infrastructure Development
Critical mineral processing, manufacturing and product development Battery industry development Circular economy including resource recovery and recycling | $2,165,718 |
| Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node Partners: Australian National Fabrication Facility Pty Ltd, The Queensland Microtechnology Facility Griffith University - Nathan Campus | Upgrade and enhance equipment capabilities to advance Queensland's priority investment areas, including research and commercialisation in next-generation renewable energy and infrastructure, advanced batteries, resource recovery and recycling, biomedical devices and technology platforms, and defence and quantum technologies. | Quantum | $2,000,000 |
| National Imaging Facility-Queensland Node Partners: University of Queensland (CAI), Queensland University of Technology, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital, Metro North Hospital and Health Service, Translational Research Institute | Bring together Queensland’s leading biomedical imaging partners to grow an expert imaging workforce in future-critical areas such as data pipelines, medical image artificial intelligence, and accessible MRI to translate research into health discoveries and commercialisation | Biomedical | $2,000,000 |
| Therapeutic Innovation Australia Ltd Partners: Queensland Emory Drug Discovery Initiative, Compounds Australia, Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development, UniQuest, Griffith University, University of Queensland, Therapeutic Innovation Australia Ltd | Establish a Queensland Drug Discovery Alliance to supercharge translation of Queensland’s drug discovery pipeline, train Queensland’s workforce and position the state at the forefront of Asia-Pacific innovation in therapeutic drug discovery development, and translation. | Biomedical | $2,000,000 |
| Bioplatforms Australia-Queensland Node Partners: AGRF at UQ, StemCore at UQ, UQ Sequencing Facility at UQ, QCIF Ltd | Empowering Queensland Biodiversity and Biomedicine Research with State-of-the-Art 'Omics Tools and Platforms to underpin biodiversity research and conservation management, and translational biomedical research. |
Biomedical Biodiversity | $1,204,000 |
| Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network Partners: The Queensland University of Technology, James Cook University, Queensland Trust for Nature, Meat and Livestock Australia, Agrimix Pastures, YACHATDAC, FMG | Deploy flux and ecohydrology sensors and machine-to-machine data access to meet industry’s need for faster access to near real-time research data and models on the State's natural and managed (agricultural) ecosystems and the natural capital services they provide, to more effectively address long term pressures such as climate and land use change, introduced species and episodic events such as bush fires and storms. |
Natural Capital Markets Biodiversity | $2,000,000 |
| Australian Plant Phenomics Facility-New Queensland Node Partners: Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (HQ), The University of Queensland | Establish a new APPF Queensland node to provide new high-throughput phenotyping (imaging and sensing) of growing plants and crops with data processing to develop new plant and crop variety pipelines and management solutions to mitigate climate change effects on farm productivity, including addressing the preservation of nature capital, the development of novel crops and accelerate the goal of carbon-neutral agriculture. |
Bioeconomy including biofuels and sustainable aviation fuel, Biodiversity | $2,084,000 |
| The UQ National Drone Research Platform Partners: AuScope, TERN, Deakin University, Flinders University, M4Mining, Horizon Europe, SheMaps, Euclideon | Expand the footprint of field deployment sites and repeat surveys within Queensland, to build the State’s resilience against habitat loss, climate change and geohazards. Extend the capability of the infrastructure to supply valuable geoscience data needed by Queensland’s industry to help locate and define resources for the energy transition. |
Critical mineral processing, manufacturing and product development Biodiversity | $1,536,000 |
| Facility | Project | Priority | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integrated Design Environment for Advanced Manufacturing (IDEA bio) Partners: Queensland Metabolomics and Proteomics nodes (AIBN, UQ St Lucia) | Expand and automate a high throughput fermentation facility (microbial phenomics) located at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and establish a virtual design lab for strain engineering to enable researchers and companies to rapidly optimise their bioprocesses for the development of new bioproducts. | Complex Biology | $1,100,000 |
| Facility | Project | Priority | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node Partners: The University of Queensland, Australian National Fabrication Facility (HQ), Griffith University – Nathan, Queensland Microtechnology Facility | Expansion of existing space and environmental control upgrades for the ANFF-Q cleanroom at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), to ensure users can continue to achieve high performance fabrication outputs. ANFF-Q nanoscience cleanroom capabilities are crucial to cementing Queensland as a world leader in nanoscience and engineering, and to secure Queensland nanoscience research and innovation efforts for everything from biomedical devices to clean energy and quantum engineering. In addition to capital investment in these areas, the project will fund continued support of highly skilled staff. |
Characterisation Advanced Fabrication and Manufacturing Advanced Physics and Astronomy Earth and Environmental Systems Complex Biology Therapeutic Development | $4,591,732 |
| Bioplatforms Australia-Queensland Node Partners: Metabolomics Australia (AIBN, UQ St Lucia), AGRF (Gehrmann Laboratories, UQ St Lucia), StemCore (AIBN, UQ St Lucia), QCIF Ltd | Optimising Queensland infrastructure investment in 'omics' sciences including supporting the Genomics Platform at the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF) at UQ to maintain up-to-date infrastructure and capacity relevant to meet the emerging needs of the research community, including large-scale genomic analysis of patient cohorts and agricultural and environmental populations. Support for Proteomics and Metabolomics Platforms for cellular metabolism research and guiding cellular design to advance Queensland's bio future including advanced fabrication and manufacturing, complex biology, and therapeutic drug development. | Complex Biology | $3,739,200 |
| Microscopy Australia -Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis Partners: The University of Sydney / Microscopy Australia, Central Analytical Research Facility (QUT, Gardens Point) | Upgrade the cryo-electron microscopy and imaging mass spectrometry instruments at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, UQ to deliver expanded instrumentation, capability and training for molecular imaging techniques to identify and localise molecules in biological and material samples to advance science and deliver industry solutions to support new breakthroughs in Queensland with broad applications including outcomes in cancer, infectious diseases, manufacturing, agriculture and supporting drug development. | Characterisation | $2,235,325 |
| Compounds Australia Partners: Griffith University, Therapeutic Innovation Australia Ltd | Implement upgraded acoustic compound management infrastructure within the Compounds Australia to transform compound management for Australian drug discovery researchers by underpinning high capacity storage that preserves compound integrity and enables faster turnaround times from compound plating request to assay-ready plate generation. This enabled a more responsive research service provision and ability to generate more microplates in the service of more requests from research users. | Therapeutic Development | $1,875,000 |
| National Imaging Facility-Queensland Node Partners: University of Queensland, Centre for Advanced Imaging (UQ, St Lucia), Herston Imaging Research Facility (Herston) |
Expand capabilities of the Queensland Node (Centre for Advanced Imaging) of the National Imaging Facility (NIF) towards the clinical research sector in molecular imaging, and radiotracer development by: 1. Development and translation of new diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics via the establishment of a new radiochemistry and molecular imaging node at the Herston Imaging Research Facility (HIRF) 2. Proving and translation of the disruptive imaging technologies of ultra-high field and 13C hyperpolarized Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). 3. Engagement with the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) for creation of digitized 3-dimensional virtual collections and their access by researchers and the community. | Characterisation | $2,565,081 |
| Integrated Marine Observing System-Queensland Node Partners: University of Tasmania, Australian Institute of Marine Science (QLD Coastal Waters), JCU (GBR Microbiome Database), DES (Wave Buoy Receivers, Directional Waverider), DES/DAF (Fish tracking - QLD Acoustic Telemetry Array) | Enhance the level of scientifically robust information available to manage Queensland’s marine estate via:
| Earth and Environmental Systems | $3,550,178 |
| Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network Partners: The University of Queensland, The Queensland University of Technology, James Cook University. TERN Trusted Data Repository (UQ, St Lucia), Campbell Flux Station (QUT, Samford Valley), Campbell Flux Station (JCU, Daintree), COSMOS Soil Moisture Metre (CSIRO, Brigalow), Flux Monitoring Sensor (JCU, Robson Creek) | Provision of new data cyber infrastructure capability to improve discoverability, usability and management of existing Queensland government agencies data using sematic-enabled data management practices. Funding provided for TERN to update field sensors for the purpose of supporting long-term terrestrial ecosystem monitoring at Queensland sites and the building of the Trusted Ecosystem Data Cyber Infrastructure system to provide TERN data users such as the Queensland Government with access to harmonised, integrated and standardised observation data. RICF funds were used to update field sensors for the purpose of supporting long-term terrestrial ecosystem monitoring at the Daintree Rainforest Observatory, Fletcherview and the Robson Creek FNQ SuperSites. | Earth and Environmental Systems | $1,668,100 |
| Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation Ltd (QCIF) Partners: The University of Queensland, BCCVL, EcoCloud, eRA (QCIF, UQ St Lucia), Specialised Compute (Polaris / St Lucia data centres) | QCIF developed the Queensland Data Analytics Platform (QDAP) to be accessible to researchers state-wide and deliver infrastructure to support cloud and high-performance computing, together with advanced data storage, and customised software platforms such as the Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL) and EcoCloud. QCIF provided a team of experts located at all member universities, who could personally support researchers to make the best use of QDAP, and delivered a comprehensive training program to ensure researchers became rapidly productive. QDAP also included specialised services that enabled the secure management and analysis of sensitive data sets. |
Digital Data and eResearch Platforms Platforms for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Characterisation Earth and Environmental Systems Complex Biology | $4,500,00 |