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Become a program partner and support a PhD student undertake a research project that tackles your business problem. Students are jointly supervised by the industry partner, the student's university, and CSIRO.

Expressions of interest

If you work in industry and have a project idea, and would like to commence the EOI process, please contact us. Round one expression of interest opens from February 2025 for new projects to commence late 2025, early 2026.

Program benefits

  • Develop new, or strengthen relationships with universities and CSIRO
  • Gain new knowledge and research solutions for challenges facing your organisation
  • Enhance innovation and build R&D pipelines through university and CSIRO knowledge transfer
  • Gain access to university and CSIRO facilities and expertise
  • Develop highly skilled and customised talent to assist with future recruitment.
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Program funding and support

The iPhD program is funded by the Australian Government and the industry partner for up to four years. Funding for each year consists of three components:

  1. Student Scholarship of $47,020 p.a. (2025 rate) comprising of $35,020 p.a. provided by the Government and $12,000 p.a. provided by the industry partner.
  2. Project Expense and Development package of up to $13,000 p.a. provided by the Government for research operating costs and research skill development.
  3. Student career and professional development training funding provided by the Government and developed/delivered by CSIRO.

Program funding amounts increase annually. Please refer to our Program Rules for yearly rates.

Program requirements

iPhD projects must:

  • align with CSIRO and Government priorities
  • address an industry problem while complying with the university PhD requirements
  • be up to four years duration
  • include at least 60 workdays of project related activities under the guidance of the industry partner, which is referred to as the Industry Engagement component.

Industry Partners must:

  • have a registered ABN or ACN
  • have a substantial presence in Australian presence
  • commit to fund a top-up scholarship for the student. For projects commencing in 2025, the total cost over four years is $49,091 (excluding GST)
  • provide a suitably experienced staff member to co-supervise the student
  • provide the student with a 60-day Industry Engagement component
  • be a Research End User
  • provide access to facilities and infrastructure, if required for the project

Project development stages

Expressions of Interest (EOI) are accepted from 1 February each year. The round will be divided into two phases, a primary phase with EOIs due on 19 April, and a secondary phase with EOIs due on 23 August. EOIs must meet program eligibility requirements and will be evaluated against assessment criterion. Please refer to our Program Rules for further information. If successful, a Collaboration Agreement will be executed between the involved parties and the project is then advertised via the participating university for a student. For EOI’s submitted in 2024, projects are expected to start late 2024/early 2025.

iPhD project development stages and approximate timeframes

Program resources

Key documents

Promotional materials

Become a program partner and support a PhD student undertake a research project that tackles your business problem. Students are jointly supervised by the industry partner, the student's university, and CSIRO.

Expressions of interest

If you work in industry and have a project idea, and would like to commence the EOI process, please contact us. Round one expression of interest opens from February 2025 for new projects to commence late 2025, early 2026.

Program benefits

  • Develop new, or strengthen relationships with universities and CSIRO
  • Gain new knowledge and research solutions for challenges facing your organisation
  • Enhance innovation and build R&D pipelines through university and CSIRO knowledge transfer
  • Gain access to university and CSIRO facilities and expertise
  • Develop highly skilled and customised talent to assist with future recruitment.

My project is linked with eco mag a smaller sharing company that's looking to produce magnesium salts from seawater.

I know this fantastic new material but they need to find new applications to use them in so I'm investigating using them in things like gas masks or in the field of catalysis trying to leverage the the knowledge we have here at UNSW.

The uniqueness of the program is given Timothy a much more valuable experience than a more traditional PhD because the program involves supervisors from academia CSIRO and Industry and combined it'll give the student of a candidate a much more rewarding and broader experience

It's really exciting to be able to know that your research can actually be translated into the real world and have a really good chance to do that.

Science these days requires both the technical aspects of your research as well as the business minded people in the room to be able to translate that into a real commercial thing and the I PhD offers a process that can actually facilitate that that you wouldn't usually get in a typical phd program.

What we provide to Tim is actually a reality check on what his works about for the university to correlate some much more with what businesses one now so for Tim and the University and CSIRO they're more attuned with what is required now.

So as part of the I PhD I got to attend a launch camp facilitated by the CSIRO. So launch count gives you a great opportunity to view your project from a different perspective and further align it with more commercial outcomes while also maintaining the scientific basis of what you're doing.

I actually participate in that with all of my super welding team and their expertise and their assistance throughout the process was invaluable. 

If you're very satisfied to see this student getting ready for the job market after their graduation and is ready for tacking tackling the real-world problem.

It's been very exciting to be able to see that potentially my research can be translated into a commercial setting to formulate new products for eco mag I think that's a big motivator for me a PhD is very you know you have to have a lot of self motivation throughout the process to have something like that to lean on throughout the processes is great.

For Tim the results for him will be that he'll have something that is practical something that is going to be used in society and hopefully for for greater good. 

It's exciting to know that my research at the end of the program could be helping real people in the real world tackle a real issue that we're facing and also with the prospect of you know furthering my skills and helping my career along the way. 

I think in terms of short-term aim of course this will link him directly to a job working with us hopefully in the future and we really like to for him to do so and who knows in the future he might be the future CEO here you know working in operating.

 
How an CSIRO industry PhD works in practice.

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Program funding and support

The iPhD program is funded by the Australian Government and the industry partner for up to four years. Funding for each year consists of three components:

  1. Student Scholarship of $47,020 p.a. (2025 rate) comprising of $35,020 p.a. provided by the Government and $12,000 p.a. provided by the industry partner.
  2. Project Expense and Development package of up to $13,000 p.a. provided by the Government for research operating costs and research skill development.
  3. Student career and professional development training funding provided by the Government and developed/delivered by CSIRO.

Program funding amounts increase annually. Please refer to our Program Rules for yearly rates.

Program requirements

iPhD projects must:

  • align with CSIRO and Government priorities
  • address an industry problem while complying with the university PhD requirements
  • be up to four years duration
  • include at least 60 workdays of project related activities under the guidance of the industry partner, which is referred to as the Industry Engagement component.

Industry Partners must:

  • have a registered ABN or ACN
  • have a substantial presence in Australian presence
  • commit to fund a top-up scholarship for the student. For projects commencing in 2025, the total cost over four years is $49,091 (excluding GST)
  • provide a suitably experienced staff member to co-supervise the student
  • provide the student with a 60-day Industry Engagement component
  • be a Research End User
  • provide access to facilities and infrastructure, if required for the project

Project development stages

Expressions of Interest (EOI) are accepted from 1 February each year. The round will be divided into two phases, a primary phase with EOIs due on 19 April, and a secondary phase with EOIs due on 23 August. EOIs must meet program eligibility requirements and will be evaluated against assessment criterion. Please refer to our Program Rules for further information. If successful, a Collaboration Agreement will be executed between the involved parties and the project is then advertised via the participating university for a student. For EOI’s submitted in 2024, projects are expected to start late 2024/early 2025.

Infographic explaining the project development stages and approximate timeframes of the CSIRO Industry PhD Program. 

 

PhD project development

  • Primary EOI round: 1 Feb - 19 Apr (approx. 35 projects)
  • Secondary EOI round: 20 Apr - 23 Aug (approx. 15 projects)

Collaboration agreement 

  • A contract is executed three months after application approval

Student recruitment

  • The project is advertised, and a student is selected, enrolled and onboarded

iPhD commencement 

  • Student supervision is shared between university, industry and CSIRO partners
iPhD project development stages and approximate timeframes

Program resources

Key documents

Promotional materials

Contact us

For further information and to submit an expression of interest.

Email the iPhD team

Contact us

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