NCRIS was announced in the 2004-2005 budget as part of the Backing Australia’s Ability – Building Our Future through Science and Innovation package. NCRIS is providing $542 million from 2004-05 to 2010-2011 to develop and fund national research infrastructure projects.
Through NCRIS the Australian Government is implementing a strategic and collaborative approach to investment in world-class research facilities, networks and infrastructure that are accessible to researchers and meet their long-term needs.
NCRIS has departed from standard practice in its approach to developing project proposals for research infrastructure. While it is not a competitive grants programme, the projects must represent excellence in their fields.
Rather than seeking proposals, the NCRIS Committee (see below) commissioned independent external facilitators to develop coordinated investment plans for priority capabilities identified in the NCRIS Roadmap. In developing the investment plans, facilitators worked with researchers, research managers, research funders and users, to define the infrastructure requirements and the collaborative arrangements for managing the operation and accessibility to facilities and equipment.
The design of NCRIS had regard to the recommendations of the
National Research Infrastructure Taskforce (NRIT). Dr Michael Sargent AM chaired the NRIT. This taskforce, which reported to the Government in early 2004, found that there was a need for a national process to identify and prioritise research infrastructure requirements.
In October 2004 Dr Brendan Nelson MP, then Minister for Education, Science and Training, appointed an NCRIS
Advisory Committee to advise him on the funding principles and process for implementation of NCRIS. The Committee presented its advice in July 2005.
The
NCRIS Committee is the successor of the NCRIS Advisory Committee. It is responsible for recommending NCRIS investments to the Minister.
The Roadmap provides a framework of research capabilities, prioritised on the basis of the NCRIS principles, that represents the Committee’s view as to where medium to large-scale research infrastructure investment should be focused over the next 10 years. It identifies the capabilities that Australia should strive to develop, rather than specific infrastructure, and also makes some recommendations on the appropriate means to support them.
For more information on the Roadmap, click here.
A review of the NCRIS Roadmap is being being undertaken in the first half of 2008. For more details, click here.
The NCRIS Committee appointed Facilitators to take responsibility for drafting investment plans in close consultation with the research community and other stakeholders, for the priority capabilities identified.
For a list of facilitators, see 'Investment Plans' here.
Funding agreements for ten of the priority capabilities have now been completed. For information on the capabilities, click here.
In early 2007, the NCRIS Secretariat conducted a Review of the NCRIS Roadmap and Facilitation Processes 
(223.3 KB). The review drew on:
- Stakeholders’ public submissions in response to the NCRIS Roadmap Exposure Draft
- The Final Reports of the Facilitators who developed the Investment Plans for the first nine NCRIS capabilities
- Responses solicited by DEST from key NCRIS stakeholders in relation to the roadmapping and facilitation processes.
Stakeholders strongly supported the NCRIS approach to infrastructure investment and responded positively to the extent of consultation. They also considered the Roadmap and Investment Plans appropriately identified high priority infrastructure investments but noted that these reflected views relevant at that point in time. The benefits of working collaboratively to identify and then jointly invest in infrastructure that meets the long-term needs of the research community was well supported.
For a timeline of the NCRIS development, click here.
To view frequently asked questions related to NCRIS, click
here.