Highlights 2023



CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of 
the lands, seas and waters of the area that we live 
and work on across Australia. We acknowledge all 
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and 
their continuing connection to their culture and pay 
our respects to Elders past and present. CSIRO is 
committed to reconciliation and recognises that 
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have 
made and will continue to make extraordinary 
contributions to all aspects of Australian life 
including culture, economy and science.

Cover: (top) CSIRO Manufacturing team leader and scientist 
Katherine Locock with Phil Thompson, Co-Founder 
of Native Secrets, a CSIRO Kick-Start alumni company, 
discussing the benefits of white cypress as an essential oil 
on Country in Dubbo Wiradjuri Country. 

White Cypress also known by Callitris glaucophylla, used 
as an essential oil for its antimicrobial benefits (bottom). 
Photo: Gary French CC BY NC



Chief Executive foreword

Australians have always turned to science to solve seemingly 
impossible challenges and pave the way to a brighter, more 
sustainable future. They have turned to science, and they 
have turned to CSIRO, and they continue to do that now.

CSIRO is committed to delivering the very best research 
to benefit the Australian community, brought to life by a 
team universally passionate, creative and committed to 
doing and enabling amazing science. 

This report sets out the many ways CSIRO has impacted the 
community over the past 12 months. It highlights how we 
work across different time horizons and in a broad range 
of research fields.

We do research that improves health. Research that 
improves understanding and protection of our 
environment. Research that builds a more resilient 
and diverse economy. Research that drives productivity 
and sustainability in Australia’s small to medium size 
companies. Research that addresses global challenges 
like pandemics and climate change and supports 
our economic prosperity today as well as the new 
industries and technologies that will shape our future. 
Often under‑emphasised, but no-less important, we also 
do research that inspires wonder and creates hope. 

No research organisation, no matter its size, can work 
effectively in isolation. So, we also collaborate with 
researchers in universities and research institutes in 
Australia and overseas, with colleagues in state and federal 
government departments and agencies, with small, medium, 
and large companies and with members of the community. 

We are also incredibly privileged to be able to listen to, 
learn from and work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait 
Islander peoples whose insights, knowledge, approaches 
and creativity are built on 65,000 years of doing science 
on this continent. 

Through all of this, and regardless of the research we 
do or who we work with, we continue to be guided by 
a single overarching principle – is what we are doing 
in the national interest, and will it benefit the Australian 
community? As this report highlights, the answer to 
those questions is a resounding yes.

Doug Hilton
Chief Executive, CSIRO

For every $1 invested in CSIRO, 
at least $8.40 in value is returned, 
equating to approx. $10.2 billion 
in benefit to the nation.

200,000 students took part 
in our education programs.

Women in leadership roles 
increased 4.2 per cent.

1,400 international 
collaborators and customers 
across 87 countries.

6,000+ people 
delivering across 49 sites 
in Australia and 2 overseas.

Launched Indigenous research 
grant and graduate programs.

Roy Morgan most trusted 
government services brand 
second year in a row.



Solving the greatest challenges

CSIRO solves the greatest challenges through innovative science 
and technology, working with governments, the research sector, 
industry, and the community.

A weather service 
for water quality 

Internationally, water systems are being threatened by 
climate change, environmental degradation, industrial 
pollution and other contaminants. Existing water 
monitoring technologies are often limited in their reach 
and in their ability to forecast future events. 

Together with foundation partner SmartSat Cooperative 
Research Centre (CRC), we’re bringing together research, 
government and industry with an initial co-investment 
to design and develop the AquaWatch Australia Mission. 
It will deliver a world-first ground-to-space water quality 
monitoring system for Australia and the globe. CSIRO 
has established 15 test sites to demonstrate real-world 
applications of AquaWatch.

Once fully operational, the system will provide near 
real‑time updates and predictive forecasting. It will 
globally support better water quality management, 
sanitation, aquaculture and environmental assessment, 
with early warning of harmful events such as toxic algal 
blooms, blackwater and runoff contamination. This will 
help increase the resilience of Australian communities who 
depend on water and improve outcomes for our natural 
environment after events like bushfires and floods.

CSIRO’s HydraSpectra sensor for installation at the AquaWatch pilot 
site at Keppel Bay on Darumbal Sea Country, monitoring sediment 
and dissolved carbon flow from the Fitzroy River towards the 
Southern Great Barrier Reef.

Six challenges we are working with partners to solve:

Health and 
wellbeing

Enhance the health and 
wellbeing of all Australians.

• Support healthier lives
• Infectious diseases prevention 
and preparedness
• Digital transformation 
of healthcare
• Health technology solutions


Food security 
and quality

Grow the triple bottom line 
value of Australia’s agri‑food 
and fibre industries. 

• Profitable agricultural 
production
• Improved crops and animals
• High value foods and feeds
• Sustainable and trusted 
value chains


Secure Australia 
and region

Safeguard Australia and our 
region from threats.

• Biosecurity
• Defence and national security
• Sovereign resilience
• Stable and prosperous region


Resilient and valuable 
environments

Enhance the resilience and 
value of our natural and 
built environments.

• Resilience to climate risks
• Healthy ecosystems
• Resilient communities and 
built environments


Sustainable energy 
and resources

Lower emissions to net 
zero while sustaining 
Australia’s prosperity.

• Electricity transition
• Industry and transport 
decarbonisation
• Sustainable prosperity 
from resources
• Value-added critical minerals


Future 
industries

Create Australia’s 
future sustainable jobs 
and industries.

• Future high-tech industries
• Transition to 
sustainable industry
• Strengthen the 
innovation system

Bright beginning for 
new supercomputer

This year we completed the Australian Government’s 
$70 million technology upgrade to the Pawsey 
Supercomputing Centre in Perth and the introduction 
of its new supercomputer called Setonix – named 
after Western Australia’s favourite animal, the quokka 
(Setonix brachyurus). 

Shortly after accessing the first stage of Pawsey’s new 
Setonix system, researchers generated a highly detailed 
image of a supernova remnant – the remains of a dying 
star’s explosion – using data gathered from the ASKAP 
radio telescope. We own and operate the telescope on 
Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.

The generation of this image illustrated that the first 
phase of Setonix has increased the computing power of 
the Pawsey Centre by 45 per cent. When fully operational, 
Setonix will allow for more processing of vast amounts of 
data coming from many scientific fields, and more science 
will be achieved in a fraction of the time.

Pawsey Supercomputing Centre on Wajuk Country in Perth, 
Western Australia.


Missions

Our missions program ensures we focus on the issues that matter the most: 
those which affect our quality of life, our economy and our environment.

Missions bring together research agencies, universities, 
industry, government and community to work 
collaboratively on outcomes that lead to positive benefit, 
new jobs and economic growth. 

Since announcing the program in 2020, we have launched 
8 missions with our partners and collaborators, each with 
an ambitious target to deliver by the end of this decade. 

In 2023, we launched 2 of those missions: 
Minimising Antimicrobial Resistance 
and AquaWatch Australia.

Since 2020

8
missions 
launched 

$442 m
co-investment 
funding 

1,181
mission-aligned 
projects 

Hydrogen 
Industry

Launched: May 2021

Goal: Supporting global decarbonisation 
through a commercially viable 
Australian hydrogen industry 
comprising both domestic and 
export value chains by 2030.

Future 
Protein

Launched: September 2021

Goal: Leverage increasing global 
demand for high quality protein 
to create new Australian protein 
products and ingredients that earn an 
additional $10b in revenue by 2030.

Drought 
Resilience

Launched: September 2021

Goal: Reducing the impacts 
of Australian droughts by 
30 per cent by 2030.

Trusted 
Agrifood 
Exports

Launched: September 2021

Goal: Increase the value of 
Australian food premiums by $10b 
by 2030, by building trust in the 
safety, quality, and provenance of 
our agrifood.

Ending 
Plastic 
Waste

Launched: March 2022

Goal: 80 per cent reduction 
in plastic waste entering the 
environment by 2030.

Towards 
Net Zero

Launched: October 2022

Goal: Helping Australia’s 
hardest‑to‑abate sectors – 
including steel, aviation and 
agriculture – to halve their 
emissions by 2035.

Minimising 
Antimicrobial 
Resistance

Launched: February 2023

Goal: To halt the rising 
death rate and economic 
burden of antimicrobial 
resistance in Australia by 2030.

AquaWatch 
Australia

Launched: March 2023

Goal: Ensure quality water 
resources with an integrated 
ground-to-space national 
monitoring system by 2026.



Future Science Platforms

Our Future Science Platforms (FSPs) are investments in cutting‑edge 
research. They explore the future science that will reinvent and 
create new industries for Australia and develop capabilities in 
tomorrow’s researchers. Since 2016, we have invested $518 million and 
recruited more than 300 early career researchers to work on our FSPs.

To develop new ways to remove and permanently lock away carbon 
from Earth’s atmosphere, our CarbonLock FSP has conducted a 
feasibility study on reservoir engineering of in-situ carbonation.

Round 1

Deep Earth Imaging

Environomics

Round 2

Responsible Innovation

Precision Health

Hydrogen Energy Systems

Round 3

Space Technology

Round 4

Quantum Technologies

Microbiomes

Valuing Sustainability

Autonomous Sensing

Collaborative Intelligence 

Round 5

Revolutionary Energy 
Storage Systems

CarbonLock

Immune Resilience

Advanced Engineering Biology

Matured FSPs: The most promising technologies 
and outputs of these FSPs have transitioned into 
our Business Units for a new phase of development, 
adoption by research partners, or to follow other 
pathways to commercialisation.

Active Integrated Matter | 2017–22

Synthetic Biology | 2017–22

Probing Biosystems | 2017–22

Digiscape | 2017–22

Artificial Intelligence 
and Machine Learning | 2019–23



Driving innovation

Solving Australia’s greatest challenges takes collaboration and innovation, 
which is why CSIRO has a range of programs to support the translation 
of Australia’s world-class science into real-world solutions. These are just 
a few of those programs. 

Start-ups

Our ON Innovation Program is helping Australia’s publicly 
funded researchers and small to medium enterprises 
(SMEs) develop the skills they need to fast‑track their 
technology and ideas into the market at pace. ON gives 
research teams the skills and confidence they need 
to translate their solutions into positive economic, 
environmental and social impact.

Since the ON Program began in 2015, it has helped 
more than 3,750 people from over 1,200 teams across 
34 universities, 19 publicly funded research agencies 
and medical research institutions, including CSIRO. 
Those teams have created 70 companies and over 
600 jobs. Post-program, ON participants have raised 
$311.6 million in investment capital and $305 million 
of commercialisation grant funding.

Nine teams from ON Accelerate 7 pictured here at the Showcase 
event which was held in May 2023. 

Small and medium businesses

This year CSIRO facilitated more than 340 projects for 
over 290 SMEs, which injected more than $33.6 million 
into research and development (R&D). Those projects 
were delivered by 40 Australian research organisations, 
including 32 universities and CSIRO.

Our Innovate to Grow program provides SMEs free support 
to take their innovative, commercial ideas to the next 
level through R&D. Our experts guide SMEs to refine their 
ideas and understand the viability of their research before 
engaging them with universities or research institutes to 
deliver collaborative R&D projects.

The CSIRO Kick-Start program assists Australian small to 
medium enterprises (SMEs) and scale-ups by providing 
facilitation and dollar-matched funding to access CSIRO’s 
research expertise and capabilities for company-led 
R&D projects. Since its inception in 2017, the CSIRO 
Kick‑Start program has been a catalyst for over 260 small 
business projects, contributing just under $24 million 
in R&D activities. Collectively, these companies now hold 
a market value exceeding $2 billion.

CSIRO’s Danyang Ying, Nutri V CEO Raquel Said and CSIRO’s Andrew 
Lawrence with innovative veggie‑loaded snacks developed through 
the Kick-Start program.



Industry and PhDs

Our CSIRO Industry PhD program (iPhD) offers a 4-year 
scholarship for PhD students to undertake a co-designed 
research project intended to develop their ability to 
understand industry needs and translate research into 
commercial outcomes.

Funded under the Australian Government’s University 
Research Commercialisation program, the scholarship 
includes a 3-month industry engagement component, 
plus a professional development and training package. 
The student is jointly supervised by CSIRO, the industry 
partner and the host university. 

PhD student Elizabeth O’Connor 
(right) commenced in early 2023, 
undertaking her iPhD with Wanless 
Waste Management, Queensland 
University of Technology and CSIRO, 
to address regulatory barriers impacting 
recycling and circular economy development in Australia. 
The aim is to identify policy reform options and investigate 
potential mechanisms, processes, and organisations 
through which legislative change can ideally be influenced 
and achieved.

Venture capital

Main Sequence, the deep technology venture fund 
founded by CSIRO, invests in translating publicly funded 
Australian research into global companies that create jobs 
and grow our economy. 

Since 2017, Main Sequence has helped to build 53 deep 
technology companies, including 8 in FY2022–23, 
all of which have created over 2,120 technology jobs. 
Every dollar invested by Main Sequence has attracted 
over $4.35 in co‑investment from other venture funds, 
strategic investors and angel investors. 

They do this through turning science and research 
into breakthrough companies like Quasar Satellite 
Technologies, a space startup commercialising CSIRO’s 
phased array technology. Quasar is working to solve 
2 space industry challenges: tracking satellites in space 
and communicating with multiple satellites at once, 
to provide a world-leading ground station service for 
satellite operators and users. 

Quasar’s first-generation S-band multibeam phased array (1.8 m in diameter). Credit: Quasar Satellite Technologies.



Driving collaboration

Work with us

We’re working with universities, business, and 
government to build new industries for Australia.

We partner with organisations small and large in several 
ways including:

• mission-orientated research collaboration
• global collaboration 
• research and development
• innovation services
• funding and programs
• accessible labs and facilities.


Find out more about how to work with us at: 
csiro.au/work-with-us

Partner with us 

We’re also incredibly privileged to be able to listen to, 
learn from and work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait 
Islander peoples whose insights, approaches, knowledge, 
and creativity are built on 65,000 years of doing science 
on this continent.

We’re committed to a science landscape in respectful 
partnership with Indigenous Australia delivering 
innovative, sustainable, holistic solutions to meet our 
greatest national challenges. For example, we’ve been 
working with Indigenous organisation Tiwi Resources, 
which represents the 8 clan groups of the Tiwi Islands in 
the Northern Territory, to identify a suitable location for 
a new extensive prawn farm pilot site.

Northern Australia’s Top End is the ideal climate 
for growing farmed prawns in a sustainable way. 
Extensive prawn farming hasn’t yet been tried in Australia, 
but there is an established and successful extensive prawn 
farming industry in Vietnam and we’ve established a 
demonstration site in Darwin to lead the way. 

Ron Poantumilui, a senior leader of the Wurankuwu 
People, said the various groups of the Tiwi Islands see 
real potential for the positive impacts in developing 
aquaculture on the islands, including economic benefits 
that can flow through generations to come.

Learn with us 

A trusted leader in STEM (science, technology, 
engineering, and mathematics) education, our programs 
aim to inspire the pursuit of STEM among students, 
to equip them with skill sets for tomorrow’s workforce, 
and to strengthen collaboration between industry 
and communities across Australia. We engaged over 
200,000 students in our programs and helped to 
upskill over 5,500 teachers to feel more confident in 
teaching STEM.

This year we launched the Living STEM program, 
which works with schools and communities in Western 
Australia to connect local Indigenous knowledge with the 
Australian science curriculum. Living STEM supports primary 
and secondary school teachers to bring Aboriginal and 
Torres Strait Islander knowledges into the classroom through 
hands-on inquiry projects to increase student engagement.

In March, we launched our national STEM Together 
initiative and its ‘Future Shapers’ recognition program, 
which creates opportunities for students in Years 5 to 10 
who come from underrepresented groups in STEM. 
This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 
students; girls; and students from regional and lower 
opportunity schools. Thirty Future Shapers co-designed 
their own prize to take their specific interest in STEM 
further. The prizes ranged from multi-day STEM camps, 
face time with experts, equipment and technology, and 
behind the scenes tours of CSIRO and industry sites.

Locations on the Tiwi Islands are being investigated as sites 
for future extensive prawn farms to grow Australia’s home-grown 
prawn produce.



Our locations

At 30 June 2023, we operated 49 sites across Australia and 2 sites overseas.

Our people also access desks or small areas of land for research purposes in 31 minor locations. We have one international 
office in Santiago, Chile, and one laboratory in Montpellier, France.

We have accredited 
science counsellors 
attached to the 
Australian embassies 
in Singapore, Vietnam, 
Indonesia, and the USA. 



As Australia’s national science 
agency, CSIRO is solving 
the greatest challenges through 
innovative science and technology.

CSIRO. Creating a better future 
for everyone.

Contact

1300 363 400 
csiro.au/contact
csiro.au

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