Environment and Heritage Grants and Funding

About the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility

• Download the overview as a PDF file
• MTSRF mission
• MTSRF goals
• Research funding
• How funding will be allocated
• When will funding be available
• Contacts

The environmental challenges facing Australia are as unique and varied as our natural environment. To make sure these challenges are addressed in a sustainable and innovative way, the Australian Government is investing $100 million into the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) programme.

Of the $100 million CERF funding, $40 million has been allocated for a Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (MTSRF), located at James Cook University campuses in Cairns and Townsville with funding running for five years from July 2005. The vision for the MTSRF is that North Queensland's public environmental assets — particularly the Great Barrier Reef and its catchments, tropical rainforests including the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, and Torres Strait — are sustained in their health through generation, transfer and sharing of world-class research and knowledge.

The establishment of the MTSRF represents a real commitment to world-class public good research on the key environmental assets of North Queensland.

MTSRF mission

To achieve its vision, the MTSRF will plan, fund and coordinate the highest quality, cross-disciplinary research for public good to:

• ensure the protection, conservation, sustainable use and management of environmental assets of the Great Barrier Reef and its catchments, tropical rainforests including the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and the Torres Strait
• foster an understanding of the interactions of North Queensland's natural environment with the social and economic aspects of North Queensland communities
• support the adoption of science-based knowledge in ecologically sustainable management policies and practices and
• facilitate capacity-building for sustainable environmental management and environmental management research, in partnership with the community, environmental managers, research institutions, industry and policy-makers.

MTSRF goals

More specifically, the MTSRF goals are to improve understanding and delivery of knowledge relating to:

1. Status of the ecosystems: understanding the condition, trend and interdependencies of environmental assets of the North Queensland region; developing methods to support ongoing regular assessment and reporting; and developing methods to identify priorities for action.
2. Risks and threats to the ecosystems: understanding the threats to, and their impacts on, the environment and hence the North Queensland region, and developing options to mitigate them.
3. Halting and reversing decline of water quality: understanding the causes and effects of changing water quality and water resource use in North Queensland's coastal catchments; developing options for improving practices, reducing risks and mitigating adverse impacts; and developing ways to measure the effectiveness of regulation, management and other actions to halt and reverse declines
4. Sustainable landscape use and management: understanding the current and potential uses of land with respect to maintenance, improvement and sustainable use of biodiversity, ecosystem function and soil resources; and providing information and options to assist North Queensland communities and industries to plan effectively for the future and make sustainable land management decisions.
5. Sustainable use and management of natural resources: understanding the current and potential industry and community uses of biodiversity and natural resources with respect to ecological, social and economic sustainability; and providing information and options to assist North Queensland managers, industries and communities to optimise the use of biodiversity resources and minimise adverse impacts of use where they occur.

Research funding

The MTSRF will provide research funding for areas not currently supported through existing grant and sponsorship programmes.

It will provide funding for the multi-disciplinary research partnerships.

Funding will be directed to research with a strong 'public good' focus and outcomes. MTSRF will support research that engages with end-users, has clear pathways for adoption of research by end-users, promotes collaboration between researchers and provides results that are freely accessible to government, industry and the community.

It will also promote research in areas of special strength or need as identified in the goals above and outlined further as specific research questions within Priority Research Areas. These will be published in the Research Investment Strategy and on the MTSRF page of the CERF web site as they become available.

This work will also contribute to the effort behind the Australian Government's national research priorities, including “An Environmentally Sustainable Australia” that targets water, soil loss, salinity, sustainable use of biodiversity and responding to climate change.

How funding will be allocated

Funding will be targeted at the creation of multi-disciplinary research partnerships coordinated by the MTSRF. A long-term Research Investment Strategy will be developed that draws on the research priorities of research users and research providers. More detailed annual research plans will be developed by the MTSRF to implement the Research Investment Strategy and respond to emerging issues as they arise.

The range of funding will reflect different levels of investigation from large multi-discipline and integrated approaches over several years through to highly targeted studies on specific and immediate needs.

When will funding be available

Transitional funding of $2.5 million has already been provided to the outgoing Reef and Rainforest Cooperative Research Centres with $37 million allocated to the MTSRF over four years beginning in 2006–07.

Contacts

Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility
PO Box 32
CAIRNS QLD 4870

or

Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility
PO Box 2320
TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810

Email: cerf@deh.gov.au

For further information, application forms and details on how to get involved, visit the MTSRF section of the CERF web site:
http://www.deh.gov.au/cerf

© Commonwealth of Australia 2005
Information contained in this publication may be copied or reproduced for study, research, information or educational purposes, subject to inclusion of an acknowledgment of the source.

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• Download Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility overview (mtsrf-overview.pdf - 900 KB)

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