Engaging with Australian industry: CSIRO in the late twentieth century

The increased engagement of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with Australian industry from the early 1980s to the late 1990s marks it as an unusual era for CSIRO. The reasons lie in CSIRO’s response to the economic and political background of the time and to government moves to reinvigorate the industrial sector. By the end of the century, external pressures for industry engagement had receded as macroeconomic conditions improved and Australian industry diversified. The engagement can be seen in the growth of direct contacts between CSIRO and research users and Australian companies that occurred across the organisation. This paper analyses CSIRO’s technology transfer policies and practices within an economic and political context and addresses two questions: why did the organisation’s approach to technology transfer change and how? We look at three mini-eras in the 1980s and 1990s and draw out major changes in technology transfer during these two decades.