Governance, IP and Commercialisation

We have consulted across our consortium of partners regarding the following governance, IP, and commercialisation arrangements for our proposed CRC.

Our Board Committees will be made up of a:

  • Finance & Risk Committee

  • Participants / Partners Committee

  • Education & Training Committee

  • Research & Development Committee

These committees will be enabled with two-way communication mechanisms with the Board, so that we ensure our Board, while remaining independent, is able to collaborate with and can be kept informed by members of the CRC more broadly as appropriate.

Our Senior Management Structure will involve a minimal spend on administration but will leverage specialised commersialisation and partnerships experience as well as regional & rural engagement expertise, to be embedded at its core.

Our CRC will deliver maximum impact by negotiating project-by-project Intellectual Property, with any remaining IP to default to the CRC. Project ownership & commercialisation rights will also be negotiated by project. Any IP brought into our CRC prior to the project will be retained by the original owner. This default model will ensure that partners who are in a position to commercialise the IP are given priority to do so. Non-commercial purposes of IP will still be made available to students for research & education purposes across our research partners, with student participation adhering to project terms otherwise. Per regular university arrangements, students will be encouraged to assign any IP they create to their research institution.

In the case of projects that primarily serve a public good outcome, the preference will be to make data & resources in these instances open source.

Overall, the Agrisolar CRC will be a company limited by guarantee, registered as a charity with the ACNC and with IP owned at the level of the project negotiated at the time of project negotiation.

Our proposed Board will be 5 members, made up of an Independent Chair with considerable board experience and equal representation of agriculture & energy sector experience across the remaining 4 positions. Board positions will be all paid, and all independent from the CRC. Our CEO (or equivalent leadership position in the CRC) will be appointed by this board. All board members will need to complete or will have completed Australian Institute of Company Directors Training (or an equivalent).

Our board composition will require a matrix of skills & diverse representation (including First Nations representation), as well as a clear and early process for declaring conflicts of interest so they can be managed. Decisions will be made by consensus wherever possible and the cadence of meetings is to be decided by the chair.

Regarding Risk, Security & International Partnerships, the CRC will leverage and follow Australian Government’s Protective Security Policy Framework. The Finance & Risk Committee of the Board will play a crucial role in determining and reviewing the CRCs risk appetite and risk management plans.

Safety, biosecurity, and other agricultural related risks will be considered in these plans, of course, given the industry sectors in which this CRC will play. Cyber security & international interference risk will be managed through the host institution’s existing infrastructure & policy, thereby reducing the burden on our CRC to develop its own governance around these aspects. We will also ensure we mitigate any risk of foreign interference by carefully vetting any international partners wishing to join our CRC now and into the future.

In terms of our financial model, we have pursued a relatively flat contribution structure for the CRC. Universities are being asked to contribute 100k cash/annum + equal in-kind. Industry contributions have a maximum of 100k cash and sliding scale of cash vs in-kind, where 100k cash cannot feasibly be contributed.

In-kind-only partners must contribute a minimum of 20k/annum in-kind, but this does not preclude them from participation across the consortium.

All funds, including matched federal funding, go into the CRC ‘bucket’ to be allocated back out on a project-by-project basis.

Our principles for funding allocation* are clear:

  • Projects must align with the strategy and focus of the CRC.

  • End user participation is required in projects.

  • Added value through targeted collaboration.

*matched federal funding for individual projects is not guaranteed as this may constrain the Board in the funding of long-term unforeseen opportunities.

Partners who commit to the CRC early as a foundation partner (as in, before the Stage 1 bid is submitted) have the opportunity to shape both the key projects that will form a centrepiece of the CRC for the coming decade and shape the overall trajectory of the CRC itself.

Projects submitted as part of the Stage 1 bid application to the federal government will receive priority status in terms of fast-tracked funding approval in early-mid 2026, should we be approved after stage 2 and stood up as a CRC at the end of 2025.