The Australian community stands to gain up to $1.6 billion as a result of three joint research projects between CSIRO and manufacturing industry, a new economic study released today shows.

Dr Colin Adam, CSIRO Deputy Chief Executive said that the three projects chosen for economic analysis by economists James Mills and Tim Yapp represented a wide range of CSIRO activity in the manufacturing area.

Dr Adam said that world leading-edge research into an anti-flu drug would save lives, dramatically lower the number of work days lost and cut medical costs.

Along with royalty payments from overseas sales of the drug GG167, the community as a whole would gain between $291 m and $1.5 billion for a research outlay of $66m, said Dr Adam.

A second project, the Smart Test battery tester is estimated to save between $23m and $66m by reducing the number of healthy batteries replaced, lowering the number of vehicle breakdowns and improving service in the battery industry. The research cost $2.5m.

The third project, the SIRO2 oxygen sensor was estimated to return up to $58m by giving firms using high temperature processes tighter quality control, and saving energy, maintenance and capital upgrade costs.

The study predicts that together the three projects will yield a return of between 4:1 and 20:1, said Dr Adam.

"The three projects were also examples of socially valuable research that private industry would not have supported" he said.

An Economic Evaluation of Three CSIRO Manufacturing Research Projects is available from Nick Goldie 06-2766478

More information from: Dr Colin Adam 06-276 6566 or Mr David Symington 03-9662 7413