The Australian Government will introduce a new, simpler form of assistance to companies seeking to take their ideas to market from early January 2010. Commercialisation Australia will ensure assistance is tailored to meet each applicant's needs rather than trying to make their application fit the program. Applicants at the proof of concept stage may be eligible for funding of up to $250,000 and additional, repayable assistance of up to $2 million will be available for early stage commercialisation activities. 

Fair Work for Small Business is an online one-stop-shop for education and information about the Fair Work Act. It has free online webinars and educational guides, information papers and monthly newsletters.

The John Heine Entrepreneurial Challenge is a competition for tertiary students. University teams pitch their new venture ideas to a panel of expert judges to win $10,000. Attend the final and be one of the first to experience the latest new ventures from some of Australia's up and coming entrepreneurs.

$2.5 million in grants will be made available to small businesses in the Textile, Clothing and Footwear sector, in a new funding round for the TCF Small Business Program to open on Wednesday, 9 December 2009. Businesses can apply for grants of up to $50,000 a project, which will boost the competitiveness of smaller Australian designers and manufacturers in domestic and overseas markets.

The Textile, Clothing and Footwear Innovation Network is to boost the innovation and competitiveness of TCF firms through increased collaboration. The network is tasked with strengthening and creating links between TCF firms, researchers and educational institutions. Contact Mandy Smith on 07 3364 0668 for more information. AusIndustry has seven TCF programs.

West Australian innovators will have access to $40 million in venture capital seed funding following the licensing of Yuuwa Capital, a successful applicant of the Australian Government's Innovation Investment Fund. This is a venture capital program that assists with the development of new fund managers in early stage venture capital investing. The Yuuwa Capital fund will specialise in ventures with a primary focus on life sciences (including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology) and information technology.

Email applications for the first round of the Australian Space Research Program close on 4 December 2009. Grants of between $200,000 and $1 million are available in Stream A - Space Education Development grants. Grants of between $1 million and $5 million are available in Stream B - Space Science and Innovation Projects. A Space Industry Innovation Council will be established to give the Australian Government strategic advice as it develops a national space policy and boosts support for space science and technology.

Recent AusIndustry announcements and project highlights

AusIndustry customer Cochlear won the Innovation Award at the recent Australian Engineering Excellence Awards. Cochlear's innovative project - the Cochlear Hybrid System - is for people with severe to profound high frequency hearing loss that enables individuals to regain their ability to communicate easily and enhances their appreciation of environmental sounds. It seamlessly integrates electrical stimulation (cochlear implant) with acoustic hearing (hearing aid). Another 17 AusIndustry customers were finalists.

The Australian company that began the world's first human trial of swine flu vaccine won the 2009 AusIndustry Innovation Award at the recent Cool Company Awards. The AusIndustry Innovation Award is presented to a business that - through being novel, unique or different - generates a dramatic improvement over conventional solutions. Vaxine Pty Ltd discovered that a novel plant sugar could be used to dramatically enhance vaccine effectiveness.

ABC's New Inventors program will air a bushfire special on February 3, 2010, and Victorian company EYEfi will feature. EYEfi received a $120,000 COMET grant to help develop its EYEfi SPARC technology which was valuable technology during last year's horrific bushfires.

Queensland company Bugs for Bugs invests heavily in research and relies on the Australian Government's R&D Tax Concession to support its research program. Bugs for Bugs uses beneficial insects to feed on pest insects such as scale and thrips. Companies registered for the R&D Tax Concession can claim back 125 per cent of their year's research and development costs.

Three innovative companies are using the Re-tooling for Climate Change Program to turn production waste into energy, install solar power and improved insulation, and to treat and recycle water for production. RCC provides grants of $10,000 to $500,000 to small and medium sized businesses undertaking manufacturing in Australia. The grants aim to assist manufacturers to reduce their environmental footprint, by improving the energy and/or water efficiency of their production processes. Customers may apply at any time. Morton's Specialist Seed & Grain - which is using waste oat hulls to power a boiler - has also been featured in FarmWeekly.

EP&T Global's measurement and monitoring technologies, developed with the help of the Australian Government's R&D Tax Concession program, are helping facility managers to minimise energy and water wastage. EP&T Global spent more than 15 years researching and developing innovative systems to measure and manage resource use in buildings and offers a combination of technologies and services to clients in the property trust, government and retail sectors. Facility Management recently featured EP&T Global.