Facilities and physical infrastructure capability

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Synergy Building, our research facility focused on solving some of Australia's biggest challenges across agriculture, the environment and the digital world.

Synergy Building, our research facility focused on solving some of Australia's biggest challenges across agriculture, the environment and the digital world.

Current capability

Capital Plan

Doing excellent science and delivering services to the benefit of Australia also requires the appropriate physical and cyber-physical infrastructure. The primary focus of the CSIRO Capital Plan has been to respond to the changing needs identified in the Strategy and Science Business Unit Plans, ensuring effective stewardship of our global science infrastructure and delivering site consolidations and collaboration hubs across the property portfolio. We have a capital planning process to address aging facilities through the upgrade and redevelopment of strategic sites supporting global science infrastructure to improve space utilisation, reduce environmental impacts, improve workplace health and safety, reduce maintenance costs and provide flexibility in the future.

Capability for the future

Site consolidation and sustainability strategy

We continue to explore advancements in technological solutions to improve the operations of our property portfolio. We also have a strong commitment to incorporating environmental sustainability measures throughout our properties and will continue to work to reduce environmental impacts, progressing innovative opportunities in sustainable procurement and building infrastructure information systems.

Some key activities in the immediate period include:

• Sydney consolidation- relocating CSIRO staff and capability to reduce CSIRO’s property footprint.
• Australian Animal Health Laboratory refurbishment- undertake renewal works to ensure the facility meets current and emerging regulatory compliance standards as part of the third of life renewal.
• Ginninderra Experiment Station - a unique opportunity for us to develop, test and apply our multidisciplinary science and knowledge in a showcase urban development.
• ACT Consolidation- relocating CSIRO staff currently in leased facilities to the Black Mountain site.
• Over the next 12 months we will develop and formalise a Sustainability Strategy for the organisation.
• Securing the next generation of supercomputers at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, with $70 million provided in Federal funding. They are expected to be operational in 2019-20.

New collections infrastructure

Over the intermediate term, we will develop a new state-of-the-art National Collections building at our Black Mountain site in Canberra, with $43 million in new funding from Government. This will not only secure their future by updating these facilities in line with international best practice, it also creates more opportunities for the knowledge within these archives to be unlocked through new research techniques and endeavours.