The Australian Government's Small Business Online program offers service providers to apply for grants for projects ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 which can provide free or low-cost IT skills development, training and mentoring services to small business. Successful grantees will be expected to equip their local small businesses to go online, enhance their web facilities and engage in e-business capabilities.

There is $50,000 worth of products and/or services on offer to the 10 category winners of the 2009 ActionCOACH My Business Awards. Categories are Best Small Business, Best Medium Business, Fastest Growing Small Business, Best Start Up Business, Best Regional Business, Best Retailer, Best Green Business, Best Technology in an SME, Best E-Business and Best Young Gun in Small Business. Applications close on Wednesday 26 August 2009

Higher education providers, vocational education and training providers and research institutes may now bid for a share of $550 million in funding to improve infrastructure for the benefit of students and the environment through the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Round 3 and EIF Sustainability Round. Initial applications are due by Tuesday 8 September 2009.

SCAMwatch explains frequent scams in areas such as small business, superannuation, credit card skimming, health and medical and banking. The website offers tips on how to protect yourself and reporting a scam, and offers the free booklet, The little black book of scams. SCAMwatch is owned and maintained by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and is also the campaign portal for the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce.

A discussion paper is to be released shortly as part of the consultation process with industry on the new R&D Tax Credit announced by the Australian Government to replace the existing R&D Tax Concession from 1 July 2010. The discussion paper will invite feedback from industry on the new program. To be alerted to the discussion paper's release, email hotline@ausindustry.gov.au, register for email updates, or phone the AusIndustry hotline on 13 28 46.

Public comment is being called for to help with the development and operation of the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute. This input will be essential to design and delivery. The Institute will assist Australia's universities, public sector research organisations and innovative firms to take their research and ideas to the marketplace.

Applications are open for the CSIRO Flagship Collaboration Fund Flagship Clusters. This round offers collaboration opportunities in six key research areas:

• biological solutions to Australia's transport energy and greenhouse gas challenges
• sex ratio and sterility for commercial animal production
• healthy complex cereal carbohydrates
• innovation: accelerating the path to impact
• national distributed urban water systems: performance verification
• environmental water

Flagship clusters foster collaboration between CSIRO, universities and other publicly-funded research agencies with funding for about three years at $1 million a year, with matching co-investment from partner organisations expected.

Investors can hear and meet with senior executives from Australia's leading environmental investment companies and fund managers, and network with other environmental investors, at the Eco Investor Forum in Sydney in October 2009.

Small Business - Rebuilding the World's Economy, in Brisbane from November 29, includes topics:

• environment - Domestic and international policies that impact on small business
• facilitating growth and success in small business
• skills and delivery of training into small business
• innovation - the lifeblood of small business
• information and communication technologies and small business opportunities
• government - best practice solutions supporting small business
• financing small business growth and managing cash flow
• connecting small business across regional and international business opportunities.

Nominations are now open to the end of September 2009 for the Consensus GreenTech Awards. The Awards recognise the contribution made by Australian and New Zealand organisations in the development and commercialisation of environmentally friendly "green" technologies, that may include carbon capture, renewable energy, waste reduction, waste recycling, water management, energy reduction.

Recent AusIndustry announcements

The Australian Government's Green Car Innovation Fund offers grants from $100,000 for projects that significantly reduce fuel consumption and/or greenhouse gas emissions of passenger motor vehicles. Applications can be lodged at any time. Potential applicants can submit a customer enquiry form.

The Innovation Investment Follow-on Fund (IIFF) is a temporary, targeted and timely response to address the lack of capital available to the most promising innovative companies during the global financial crisis. Funding of $64 million will be made available to 11 fund managers to invest in early stage companies to continue to develop and to commercialise research.

A silent micro wind turbine that could be used in household backyards to generate energy and a web-based software program that can predict recovery times for injured people are among 38 projects to share $2.4 million in Commercialising Emerging Technologies (COMET) funding to market their products. These projects' funding were excuted from from January to March 2009.

AusIndustry project highlights

EP&T Global used the Australian Government's R&D Tax Concession to employ two people in its early days. The Sydney company, which provides monitoring and reporting technologies for energy conservation and environmental solutions, now employs 40 engineers.

Victorian mechanical engineer Stuart Elliott commercialised his solar energy invention with the help of a $64,000 Commercialising Emerging Technologies (COMET) grant. Stuart wanted to tap into solar energy to reduce his heating bill, but what was originally designed as a solar powered heater ended up using solar energy to cool and ventilate. The solar panel, called SolaMate, works by drawing in outside air through a triple-glazed honeycomb system. It is featured in Eco Voice.

A $500,000 matching dollar-for-dollar grant from the Climate Ready Program helped create the BioCube, which is a community's own green fuel station capable of providing up to 400 people with a sustainable source of affordable clean energy. Queensland company, The Biofuel Partnership, also accessed the R&D Tax Offset component of the R&D Tax Concession, which was worth $190,000 for the $1.5 million they spent developing the BioCube. The BioCube is featured in Green Times.