Deadline: September 21, 2025
The Innovate to Grow program, delivered by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO, invites small to medium enterprises in Australia working on critical minerals to join a free 10-week opportunity designed to build skills and refine innovation ideas into impactful research and development projects.
The focus areas of the program include mining technology, ore characterisation and analysis, ore suitability for processing, mineral sorting and processing, sustainable processing, minerals to materials to market, integration of renewable energy to processes, recover, reclaim, recycle, and other related sub-sectors.
This program is designed to support Australian-based SMEs with less than 200 employees who have an R&D idea related to critical minerals. Over the course of the program, participants receive personalised support to refine their ideas, confidential expert feedback, a mentor from CSIRO or university researchers, and networking opportunities to build key sector contacts. The program outcomes also focus on helping participants create strong research questions, assess innovation value, explore collaboration options, compose impactful R&D business cases, prepare funding applications, and find R&D solutions to technical problems.
The commitment involves 3-4 hours of preparation before the official start, a 4.5-hour workshop featuring expert guest speakers, followed by self-paced innovation development over 10 weeks including networking webinars. Participation is free of cost, but selection is competitive based on the strength of application and capacity to pursue R&D. Sole traders, partnerships, and subsidiaries of foreign entities are not eligible for participation.
The program aims to empower SMEs to take their ideas from concept to viable research projects that can advance Australia’s critical minerals sector and innovation ecosystem.
For more information, visit CSIRO.
