Dear All

We have recently had confirmation from the Commonwealth that our extensive suite of contracts that we all worked on for the establishment of our new CRCSI  have been approved by the Commonwealth and their funding of us can now commence!

• The CRCSI Research Director – this position has gone from being part-time in the old CRCSI to full-time in the new and as such it was felt appropriate to advertise it.
• The CRCSI (NZ node) Director of Operations – to be based in New Zealand and hosted by Land Information New Zealand. This is a new position that reflects the growing importance of New Zealand.
• Finance Manager Samantha Bain has moved to a part time appointment and following a competitive recruitment process we welcome Nicola Hart who will be job sharing the role with Samantha.

All positions advertised or appointed will be noted in the news section of the CRCSI website www.crcsi.com.au
 
3] ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2010
The CRCSI Annual Conference will be held in Melbourne on 23 and 24 November. These dates were chosen to take into account the timing of other spatial events and the need to maximise benefit of attendees. In past years conference attendance has been exclusively for employees of members of the CRCSI. It is likely that this practice will continue.

4] Australian Space Activities Survey
For the first time in 14 years the Federal Government has decided to take an active role in space.  The Federal Government has allocated $40 million in seed funding for space research projects and $8.6 million over 4 years to form the Space Policy Unit (SPU) within the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR) to coordinate Australia’s Federal Space Activities.  The SPU is tasked with developing a National Space Policy and is seeking information about the size and current activities of Australia’s space sector.  They have engaged Asia Pacific Aerospace Consultants Pty. Ltd. (APAC) to identify Australia’s current space activities and conduct an economic assessment of the current value of space to the Australian community and associated trends as input to the National Space Policy development.

“Current space activities” includes the use of space derived data in products and services.  The spatial information industry is heavily involved in these space activities and this is your opportunity to make a contribution towards informing future Australian space policy.  APAC has prepared a survey to collect your information at www.surveymonkey.com/s/Australian_Space_Activites_Survey  The survey takes 15-20 minutes to complete.  

On Christmas Eve I signed off on the start of CRCSI-2 in Canberra with the Acting General Manager of the CRC Program Cathy McKay. I presented to Cathy a complete set of signed Essential Participant Agreements and a complete set of Termination Deeds for CRCSI-1. CRCSI-1 officially ceased operation on 31 December 2009 and CRCSI-2 officially commenced on 1 January 2010 for a period of eight and a half years.

The Commonwealth will now review all of the documentation that we have submitted to determine the timing of their first payment to us. Of particular interest is a reconciliation report that we submitted that shows the total amount of cash, inkind and people (measured as full time equivalents) that have been committed compared with the bid itself and the Commonwealth Agreement.

The Commonwealth have indicated their willingness to work with us in the New Year to satisfy the requirements of all parties. I hope this process moves swiftly to the point where the Commonwealth feel they can commence payment.

On behalf of the Management Team thank you all for your great support, and I look forward to an exciting 2010.

Peter Woodgate
CEO, CRCSI-2

The November roadshow of 43pl-2 & CRCSI-2 briefing sessions explained the context of the various contracts; summarised progress to date and principles of CRCSI-2 operation; and discussed issues raised.

The 43pl-2 presentation can be viewed at http://crcsi2.com.au/43pl/43pl-2-roadshow-nov09/ and the CRCSI-2 presentation at http://crcsi2.com.au/

1] Contracts   2] Governance   3]   Research Activities

1] CONTRACTS
As you know we will be the largest Cooperative Research Centre by partner numbers in the 20 year history of Australia’s CRC Program. The Australian Government has indicated that we must be ready to start operations on 1 January 2010. If we are not able to start then they reserve the right to begin to reduce the value of their grant. Accordingly we have moved as quickly as we can to prepare the agreements that will secure the involvement of our partners. 10 separate contracts are being developed to achieve the termination of CRCSI-1 and start up of CRCSI-2 (incl 43pl-2) Your various inputs to these are appreciated.

You will soon be receiving a specific update on the required tmeframes for the execution of each of these contracts.

2] GOVERNANCE

DIRECTORSHIPS
1. The CRCSI-2 Colleges are encouraged to nominate up to 8 candidates from each college for the Board of Directors of CRCSI-2. The Colleges will each determine how they will seek names of candidates from their constituents. A request for nominations will be soon issued.

There is no requirement to contact the person in advance of the nomination. The Steering Committee will shortlist suitable candidates and following endorsement by the Essential Participants will work back through the nominator to contact the candidates to determine their availability and confirm their suitability, noting more information may be sought at this stage.

The CRCSI-2 Board will be skills based . The following skills sets will be highly regarded:
1. Establishment
1.1 As at the Commencement Date, the Board will initially comprise no more than seven Directors, including an independent Chair and an Executive Director (CEO), and at least two of the Directors will be independent (in addition to the Chair and the Managing Director), as follows:
(a) An independent Chair with considerable experience in managing boards, with financial, governance and stakeholder management experience;
(b) 5 Directors covering the following selection of skill sets:
(i) strong experience in corporate governance, audit and risk management, and finance, and preferably with experience in one or more of the Centre’s application areas;
(ii) extensive federal or state government experience and knowledge
(iii) Intellectual Property management and capital raising experience and experience in one or more of the Centre’s application areas
(iv) current involvement and commercial experience in the spatial information industry, ideally with a current role in surveying, imagery-related activities, spatial infrastructure, software development and/or web services
(v) extensive experience in the academic sector and national and international research
(c) An Executive Director (CEO and Managing Director) covering an appropriate selection of the skill sets above.

By now you should be aware of the activities of the College in which you are in - Government; SME (43pl); or Government. Feel free to reply email any queries in this regard. If you are not aware we will put you in touch with relevant people in your College.

3] RESEARCH ACTIVITIES - more on these at the crcsi2.com.au website - remember the password for CRCSI-2 participants is “capfitz”

You are encouraged to contact relevant people to pursue engagement in CRCSI-2 activities.

Program 1 - Positioning
A one day workshop was held at the CRC offices in Melbourne involving key researchers in the Positioning Program. The objective of the workshop was to plan the process for developing and refining the research program over the next few months, with a view to implementation by mid 2010. Individuals attending the workshop were Peter Teunissen, Will Featherstone, Chris Rizos, Yanming Feng, Kefei Zhang and Phil Collier. Members of the CRC Executive team, including Peter Woodgate and Graeme Kernich also participated. The workshop developed an implementation plan that will include a series of workshops, scheduled for February 2010. These workshops will be run in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and possibly Sydney/Canberra and Wellington. The objective of the workshops is to engage CRCSI partners and to use their input and feedback to ensure that the research directions and proposed outputs are genuinely “user-driven”. To facilitate this process, a briefing document is being prepared for circulation to partners prior to the workshops. This document will set out the basic principles for engagement and will outline the broad research agenda that is being pursued. It is hoped that the briefing document will allow participants to contribute constructively to the development of the research program, through the workshops. For more information contact Phil Collier (03 8344 125 or pcollier@crcsi.com.au).

Program 2 - Automated Spatial Information Generation
Workshops, supported by a discussion paper, have been held by Clive Fraser in Melbourne and Perth and the next one is in Brisbane on 15 December - details at http://crcsi2.com.au/research-programs/data-capture-processing/dafe-documents/ [enquiries to cfraser@crcsi.com.au]

Program 3 - Spatial Data Infrastructures
An open session was held at the WALIS International Forum in November. [enquiries to Dan Paull 02 6295 7033 dan.paull@psma.com.au ; Kylie Armstrong 08 9273 7518 kylie.armstrong@landgate.wa.gov.au; Bruce Thompson]

Program 4 - Applications - http://crcsi2.com.au/market-applications/
4.1 - a program meeting will be held early in the new year around the biomass business and other proposals in this program. Contact Kim Lowell & Dave Lamb and keep an eye on the website crcsi2.com.au
4.2 & 4.3 - considered within Program 2 above. Contact Clive Fraser and keep an eye on the website crcsi2.com.au
4.4 - a program meeting will be held early in the new year. Contact Narelle Mullan and keep an eye on the website crcsi2.com.au
4.5 - a program meeting will be held early in the new year. Contact Peter Newman and keep an eye on the website crcsi2.com.au

Initial Itinerary
To help catering and avoid crowding please RSVP incl which venue you will attend by reply email or to jinall@crcsi.com.au. There are more sessions later, as foreshadowed in the recent leter from the Chair.

Adelaide: Monday 9 November
4.00 pm - 5.00 pm 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
Venue: Conference Room, Alexander Symonds, level 1, 11 King William Street, Kent Town.
RSVP by Friday 6 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Perth: Tuesday 10 November
2.30 pm - 3.00 pm: 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
3.15 pm - 5.00 pm: Open session for all CRCSI-2 participants (incl 43pl-2)
Venue: Floreat Conference Room, Landgate , 65 Brockway Rd, Floreat Park, Perth
RSVP by Friday 6 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Brisbane: Monday 16 November
10.00 am - 10.30 am: 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
10.45 am - 12.00 noon: Open session for all CRCSI-2 participants (incl 43pl-2)
Venue: Level 1 Theatrette, Land Centre building, Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM),
867 Main Street, Woollangabba. Allow time on arrival for check-in with security at building entrance.
RSVP by Thursday 12 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Sydney: Tuesday 17 November
10.00 am - 10.30 am: 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
10.45 am - 12.30 pm: Open session for all CRCSI-2 participants (incl 43pl-2)
Venue: Rolleston Room , Level 3,Land and Property Management Authority
1 Prince Albert Road, Queens Square, Sydney NSW 2000.
Contact on the day: Lexie Hopkins: 02 9236 7601.
RSVP by Thursday 12 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Wellington: Thursday 19 November
10.00 am - 10.30 am: 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
10.45 am - 12.30 pm: Open session for all CRCSI-2 participants (incl 43pl-2)
Venue: Pickering Board room, 11th floor, Land Information NZ (LINZ), 160 Lambton Quay, Wellington.
RSVP by Tuesday 17 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Melbourne: Friday 20 November
2.30 pm - 3.00 pm: 43pl-2 information session on contract signing and CRCSI-2 interaction etc
3.15 pm - 5.00 pm: Open session for all CRCSI-2 participants (incl 43pl-2)
Venue: Level 16, Vic Department of Sustainability and Environment, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
RSVP by Tuesday 17 November to Jane Inall: jinall@crcsi.com.au

Progress report on creation of CRCSI-2

I am writing to you in my capacity as Chair of the Steering Committee for CRCSI-2 to update you on progress.

Minister Carr approved the establishment of CRCSI-2 on 6 August 2009.  Approval was granted for the CRCSI-2 proposal as submitted at the time of application. But the Commonwealth funding was $8.0 million less than requested, which means the total cash budget will now be $60.6 million. This change will require careful planning and adjustment to the range of activities for the CRC in order to meet it original objectives.

The Commonwealth has asked us to start CRCSI-2 on 1 January 2010. This will require us to complete two critical agreements fairly quickly. The first is the Commonwealth Agreement which secures the $32.2 million of Commonwealth funding over the next 8½ years. The second is the Participants’ Agreement which brings in all of the 115 or so founding participants in CRCSI-2. Both of these agreements will need to be executed in mid-December 2009.

A number of briefings are in train to ensure that everyone who is a member of a participant organisation in CRCSI-2 has the opportunity to become engaged in its development.  These include:

• a roadshow of briefings lead by Peter Woodgate with invitations to all participants for discussions on establishing CRCSI-2. We hope participants will raise any issues that are of concern at these meetings. The proposed dates for these meetings are:
  • Adelaide:                     Monday 9 November
  • Perth:                          Tuesday 10 November
  • Brisbane:                     Monday 16 November
  • Sydney:                       Tuesday 17 November
  • Wellington NZ:            Thursday 19 November
  • Melbourne:                  Friday 20 November
  • Darwin:                        Tuesday 2 February 2010
  • Canberra:                    Thursday 4 February
  • Hobart:                        Friday 5 February
  • Armidale:                     Monday 8 February

These briefings will last up to 2 hours. Times and venues will be advised shortly.

• workshops for each of the programs and sub-programs to continue the development of the research strategies prior to Christmas.  These workshops will be open to interested participants in CRCSI-2.  Dates and venues will be advised separately.

• a Participants’ Forum for all people involved in CRCSI-2 in March 2010. The date and venue will be advised in due course.

The current focus of planning for CRCSI-2 is on the legal requirements and timelines to meet the Commonwealth signoffs.  At this stage there have been no decisions regarding formulation of specific research projects, recruitment of researchers, or allocation of budgets.  Such decisions will be held over until the new Board is appointed. I suggest we hold the first board meeting in late January or early February 2010. We anticipate that detailed development of the overall business plan for CRCSI-2 will happen in February-May 2010 with a view to significantly ramping up research activities in July and beyond.

This is a most exciting time for us all. Thank you all for your ongoing support and for your timely response on the legal document drafts sent out recently.

Kind regards

Mary O’Kane

Chair, CRCSI-2 Steering Committee

An update on the implementation of CRCSI-2, grouped under several major headings. If you have any queries feel free to contact us. The below does not cover the wind up of CRCSI-1.

CRITICAL DATES

Nov/Dec           CRC Program approval to execute all contracts; contract execution
9/10 Nov          Participants Forum (tbc)
Mid-Oct            “Near final” Commonwealth Agreement and Participants Agreement with CRC Program for their review
7 Oct                Participants Agreement v2 to Essential Participants for comment by 14 Oct
21 Sep              Participants Agreement v 1 with commentary distributed to Essential Participants for their comment asap and before 30 Sep
6 Sep               CommAg Schedules to Essential participants distributed for information

CRCSI-2 CONTRACTS
Commonwealth Agreement and Schedules (which describe our work outcomes and milestones over the period) - a draft has been sent to the Commonwealth for their review; and to the Essential Participants for their information/comment. The contract is signed by the Commonwealth and SIS Ltd on behalf of the CRCSI-2 Unincorporated Joint Venture.

Participants Agreement (which describes how the CRCSI-2 Unincorporated Joint Venture will operate) - a draft template has been received from the Commonwealth, and the executive has suggested changes and additions though our solicitors FAL. This draft and a covering explanatory note will be circulated to Essential Participants and College Participants on Monday 21 September. We understand that only the former are required to execute this contract. Please alert your legal advisers to this timing: we hope to have all feedback on this draft before 7 October.

College Participants - formerly known as “Other Participants” in the Commonwealth language - we anticipate a simple agreement contract to confirm intended contributions and engagement mechanisms and withdrawal terms for execution by those who are not classified as “Essential participants” in the CRC Program’s language but which are nonetheless very important to our operations.

All the 43pl-2 companies will be included under the 43pl-2 unit trust documentation.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
While there is much focus on the contractual foundations of the CRCSI-2 we must in parallel develop our research and education programs for review by the new CRCSI-2 Board in the new year. Program researchers should be working up their project proposals, using the CRCSI1 templates, in conjunction with their respective program managers and leaders and also the CRCSI executive ; and of course in conjunction with CRCSI-2 end-users. There are already planned several workshops in Oct/Nov. If there are new entities you seek to involve please advise us and we can facilitate this.

The CRCSI-1 proposal template, while it may be altered in due course for CRCSI-2, still serves as a valid template to capture proposal information and contributions as they are developed. You can download it, within a CRCSI-1 project leader’s manual, at http://crcsi2.com.au/research-programs/

COLLEGES
Research and Education College - is meeting weekly to set up its governance and communication mechanisms amongst the four Essential Participants and all the College Participants. It is chaired by Graeme Wright and Deputy Chair is Ray Cooksey. The College will establish a communication channel to the College participants at its next meeting.

43pl-2 - the current board of 43pl has taken on the “43pl-2 Steering Committee” role. Gaden’s lawyers have been engaged to draw up a new structure and this will be soon circulated to companies which have expressed interest in 43pl-2.

CRCSI-2 OPERATIONS
A review team is looking at how we operated in CRCSI-1 to see where we might improve and adapt our processes and procedures in the new CRCSI-2. Feel free to make suggestions by reply email.

WEB SITE
We will keep using the crcsi2.com.au website as we work up CRCSI-2; and evaluate the changes we want to make to our extant crcsi.com.au website. Feel free to suggest changes / new functionality by reply email or 0417 908 180.

Prime contacts for any research program queries
P1 - Positioning - Phil Collier 03 8344 9200 pcollier@crcsi.com.au
P2 - Automated Spatial Information Generation - Clive Fraser  03 8344 9200 cfraser@crcsi.com.au
P3 - Spatial Infrastructure - Dan Paull 02 6295 7033 dan.paull@psma.com.au ; Kylie Armstrong 08 9273 7518
P4.1 - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Climate Change - Kim Lowell 0439 439 174 klowell@crcsi.com.au Dave Lamb dlamb@une.edu.au
P4.2 - Energy Utilities - George Curran - 0431 041 336 gcurran@crcsi.com.au
P4.3 - Defence - Charles Vagi - charles.vagi@defence.gov.au
P4.4 - Health - Narelle Mullan 0418 910 940 nmullan@crcsi.com.au
P4.5 - Sustainable Urban Planning - Peter Newman p.newman@curtin.edu.au

Any queries please get in touch …

Mike Ridout
08 9386 5967 mob 0417 908 180
www.crcsi2.com.au - the rebid site

Since our news of success a fortnight ago we have received, and accepted, the Commonwealth Program’s terms and conditions of our CRCSI-2 funding. We are still negotiating some of the finer details.

Broadly this means we have the following tasks ahead of us in the coming few months:

TASK 1 -   Bring CRCSI-1 to an end by 31 December 2009

• Terminate the current CRCSI-1 Commonwealth contract and arrange for projects to wind up or transfer through to CRCSI-2
• Wind up 43pl-1
• Wind up SISL-1

TASK 2 -   Start the new CRCSI-2 effective 1 January 2010

• Sign the CRCSI-2 Commonwealth Agreement
• Sign the CRCSI-2 Participants’ Agreement (each Essential participant to sign this, including 43pl-2)
• Create 43pl-2
• Create SISL-2

TASK 3 -   Operations: i n parallel with these strategic and legal processes we will

• Put governance structures in place in consultation with Essential Participants through the CRCSI-2 Steering Committee [Mary O'Kane (Chair CRCSI-1), Warwick Watkins (Chair of ANZLIC representing all government partners), Mark Judd (Chair of 43pl), Graeme Wright (representing universities and research agency partners), Bruce Thompson (Deputy Chair CRCSI-1 and representing CRCSI-1) and Peter Woodgate (Bid Leader)]
• Establish protocols of communication amongst all the stakeholder colleges - each college will be dealt with individually
• Establish protocols for the development and approval of new project proposals

We will update you on progress through regular communiqués and through the www.crcsi2.com.au website.

In particular we will be providing in the near future more detail on the timing of the next steps within the above tasks, and providing drafts of relevant documents as soon as possible.

In the meantime feel free to contact us at any time.

Mike

Mike Ridout
08 9386 5967 mob 0417 908 180
www.crcsi2.com.au - the rebid site

Our strategy comprises three fundamental research programs and an integrated applications program. Research Program 1, ‘Positioning’, underpins a full framework of continuous operating reference stations (CORS) to ultimately enable all of continental Australia to be capable of real-time precise positioning services based on global navigation satellite systems. Research Program 2 ‘Automated Spatial Information Generation’ addresses complex processing of multiple remote sensing sources that satellite-based, airborne and ground-based. Research Program 3, ‘Spatial Infrastructures’ helps form the foundation for development of an Australian Spatial Marketplace that will make accessible vast amounts of government data under a new licensing and access regime which supports user-generated content from the mass market.

Those three core programs are integrated with Program 4, ‘Applications’, to support users from the Health, Defence and Security, Energy and Utilities, Urban Development, and Agriculture-Natural Resources-Climate Change sectors. Program 4 drives outputs from the three core research programs in sector specific deployments for high impact. There are considerable research and development challenges that must be met in order to achieve the strategic outcomes.

The new CRCSI (CRCSI-2) will start on 1 January 2010. On inception it will comprise over 100 partners. These will be made up of:

* over 70 SMEs in the 43pl consortium
* several energy corporations
* up to a dozen universities and research institutes (local and overseas)
* approximately 20 government departments including the Australian Government, the New Zealand Government and New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.

The peak bodies for the spatial information industry in the government sector, the private sector, and the professional sector have all entered into arrangements with the CRCSI to ensure industry wide benefits through structured programs on business development, innovation management, and education and capacity building.