Bioenergy Cooperative Research Centre (CRC)

The Bioenergy Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is an innovative initiative aimed at transforming Australia’s major biowaste streams into sustainable, clean energy. As the nation seeks to diversify its energy portfolio and transition to net-zero emissions by 2050, biowaste offers a significant opportunity to address environmental challenges, reliability issues inherent with wind and solar power, create economic value, and improve energy security, including addressing shortages in gas supply.

Introduction

Australia produces vast amounts of biowaste from agriculture, food processing, healthcare, and municipal waste streams. However, much of this valuable resource remains underutilised, often ending up in landfills where it generates greenhouse gases and other pollutants and incurs significant costs to the waste stream producer and community. Converting biowaste into energy reduces emissions and costs as well as creates valuable by-products such as biochar, fertilisers, and water and contributes to a circular economy.

The Bioenergy CRC will act as a catalyst to create an innovation ecosystem that brings together industry leaders, government bodies, research institutions, and technology providers to accelerate the growth of this emerging sector. By leveraging Australia’s existing strengths in bioenergy research and industry expertise, the CRC will address systemic critical barriers to adoption, improve technologies, and accelerate the commercialisation of Australian bioenergy solutions that have applications worldwide.

With global demand for clean energy on the rise and increasing pressure to reduce waste, the CRC aligns with national and international priorities and offers a path to:

• Divert significant volumes of biowaste from landfills.

• Support Australia’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve net zero by 2050.

• Enhance Australia’s energy independence with sustainable, homegrown solutions.

• Unlock an estimated $10b p.a. contribution by the sector to GDP, creating over 26,000 jobs by 2030.

Australia is under increasing pressure to reduce its reliance on traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas which are finite, increasingly expensive and contribute significantly to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. This has created a ‘holy grail’ challenge to develop sustainable energy solutions that are cost-competitive with traditional energy sources. Converting biowaste to energy is emerging as a priority solution to complement other renewable energy sources like wind and solar. With innovative technologies increasingly demonstrating its benefits, particularly in remote and regional areas where energy costs are highest.

Australia is well placed to be a global leader in turning biowaste into energy with large and untapped sources of biowaste from sectors such as agriculture, food processing and healthcare. These sectors are also modern, adept at innovating and have shown a strong interest in further trialling and scaling up energy from biowaste.

What are the opportunities

Illustration of Hubs

The CRC will create innovation hubs that:

• Serve as demonstration sites for the most prospective scalable commercial applications.

• They will match energy sources to the best feedstock and prime customers.

• Hubs will create an ecosystem that can support these demonstration sites.

THE CRC BID TEAM

CRC Governance and management

The CRC will be a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, governed by an independent, skills-based Board of Directors. The Board will oversee the strategic direction, governance, and performance of the CRC and adhere to best-practice corporate governance.

The research program will be guided by a Research and Translation Committee. Independently chaired and comprised of industry partners, external experts and capital providers, this Committee will assess research proposals against selection criteria including industry need, scientific merit, commercial potential, and alignment with CRC objectives. It will recommend projects to the Board for approval, which will oversee project performance, including maximising their commercial potential.

The CRC will help address sector workforce shortages through professional development programs, short courses, the attraction of workers to the sector and through industry-focused PhDs.

Where appropriate, projects will be supported to help maximise their commercial potential, which will also help strengthen pathways to impact and coordinate industry engagement.

The Bioenergy CRC is committed to ensuring that research translates into real-world impact. A key part of our strategy involves robust commercialisation planning and a clear, equitable Intellectual Property (IP) framework designed to benefit our partners and Australia.

COMMERCIALISATION PATHWAYS

All CRC funded projects must include a clear pathway to impact, and where applicable, a detailed commercialisation plan that identifies market opportunities, end users, the roles of key partners across the innovation ecosystem, and outline how partners will collaborate to bring innovations to market.

The CRC will employ a 'line of sight' process to research outputs to tangible outcomes and identify viable commercialisation routes. The commercial potential of projects will be reviewed by the Research and Translation Committee, with support available from the CRC's.

Based on this process, specific partners who will play a role in commercialisation are identified for each project. In some cases, where a partner demonstrates significant capacity and commitment to exploit the project's IP, they may be designated as the sole or lead commercial partner, ensuring a focused drive towards achieving the project's impact goals.

IP Framework

Project IP (PIP) developed through CRC activities will be owned by the CRC and licensed to commercial partners on favourable terms. Where appropriate, exclusive rights may be granted, particularly when a lead partner is committed to commercialising the technology. To encourage uptake, exclusivity will be performance-based.

Background IP (BIP) brought into the CRC by partners will remain the property of its original owner but will be made freely available for use in research activities.

All IP, both BIP and PIP, will be tracked through a centralised CRC IP Register.

Specific commercialisation roles, IP licensing terms, and benefit-sharing arrangements, will be negotiated collaboratively on a project-by-project basis and formally documented in individual Project Agreements, These tailored arrangements are crucial for reflecting the unique contributions of partners and the specific nature of each project's outputs and market pathways.

The CRC Program

The CRC Program is uniquely positioned as the only funding mechanism in Australia capable of providing the scale and duration necessary to drive transformational change across emerging bioenergy sectors. It enhances Australia’s international competitiveness and creates new employment opportunities.

The program aims to foster large-scale applied research collaborations between industry and academia, addressing critical challenges to deliver substantial economic, environmental, and social benefits to Australian industries.

Government funding for each CRC typically ranges from $30 million to $60 million, which is matched by participant cash contributions. In addition to these cash investments, participants also provide significant in-kind support to ensure the success of the program.

Benefits of participation

By participating in the Bioenergy CRC, your organisation can:

• Secure long-term grant funding to drive your innovation aspirations.

• Collaborate with Australia’s leading innovators, solving the most pressing challenges in bioenergy and waste management.

• Gain preferential access to intellectual property (IP) developed through the CRC to enhance your organisation’s competitiveness.

• Claim tax rebate on qualifying cash contributions under the R&D Tax Incentive program.

• Connect with the country’s premier network of pioneering organisations driving innovation in bioenergy and sustainable waste solutions.

• Boost your business credibility and stand out technologically with your customers.

• Influence skills development and training programs to create a future-ready workforce for the bioenergy sector.

• Leverage standout postgraduate and PhD students to support your organisation through collaborative projects and as potential future hires.

become a partner of the crc

The Bioenergy CRC offers flexible participation options tailored to align with your strategic goals, resources, and desired level of involvement. Whether through cash contributions or in-kind support, partners can choose from various tiers of engagement, each offering proportional benefits that reflect their commitment. This flexible model ensures all participants can actively contribute to and benefit from this transformative initiative, driving innovation in bioenergy and sustainable waste management. We would like to encourage those who want to form part of this collaboration to reach out to secure your involvement and funding.

expected timeline

We are working towards the following key dates for our submission to Round 27 of the CRC Program:

CONTACT US

Greg Spinks

Managing Director

gregspinks@consultingis.com.au

0412 386 373