Coordinates	33°55′31″N18°25′26″N
Agency name	Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
Logo	CSIRO Logo.svg
Logo width	136px
Headquarters	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Formed	1926
Jurisdiction	Commonwealth of Australia
Employees	6600+
Chief1 name	Megan Clark
Website	csiro.au
Footnotes	}}

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is the national government body for scientific research in Australia. It was founded in 1926 originally as the Advisory Council of Science and Industry.

Research highlights include the invention of atomic absorption spectroscopy, development of the first polymer banknote, invention of the insect repellent in Aerogard and the introduction of a series of biological controls into Australia, such as the introduction of Myxomatosis and Rabbit calicivirus which causes rabbit haemorrhagic disease for the control of rabbit populations. CSIRO's research into ICT technologies has resulted in advances such as the Panoptic Search Engine (now known as Funnelback) and Annodex.

In October 2005 the journal ''Nature'' announced that CSIRO scientists had developed near-perfect rubber from resilin, the elastic protein which gives fleas their jumping ability and helps insects fly. On 19 August 2005, CSIRO and UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) announced they were able to make transparent carbon nanotube sheets that will bring carbon nanotube products to the masses.

Research groups and initiatives

Employing over 6600 staff, CSIRO maintains more than 50 sites across Australia and biological control research stations in France and Mexico. The primary roles of CSIRO include contributing to meeting the objectives and responsibilities of the Australian Federal Government and providing new ways to benefit the Australian community and the economic and social performance of a number of industry sectors through research and development.

Research undertaken by CSIRO is divided into operational 'Divisions'. As at September 2010, these divisions are:

Astronomy and Space Science (including the Australia Telescope National Facility)

Earth Science and Resource Engineering

Energy Technology

Food and Nutritional Sciences

ICT Centre

Land and Water

Livestock Industries

Marine and Atmospheric Research

Materials Science and Engineering (including former Molecular and Health Technologies)

Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics

Process Science and Engineering

Plant Industry

Ecosystems Sciences (including Entomology)

In 2007, the divisions of Industrial Physics and Manufacturing and Materials Technology merged to form a new division, Materials Science and Engineering. On 1 July 2010, the Materials Science and Engineering division then merged with Molecular and Health Technologies to form a new division, also called Materials Science and Engineering, led by Dr Calum Drummond.

In addition, CSIRO is a participant in a number of joint ventures, including:

Ensis — forestry and forest products, with New Zealand's Forestry research organisation named Scion

Food Science Australia — with the Victorian Government (known as "CSIRO Division of Food and Nutritional Sciences" as of 1 July 2009)

The Australian e-Health Research Centre — with the Queensland Government

"Flagship" initiative

The CSIRO "Flagship" initiative was designed to integrate, focus and direct national scientific resources. In May 2005, the government announced the launch of CSIRO's $97 million Flagship Collaboration Fund, which is intended to encourage cooperative research between universities, CSIRO and other research agencies.

, CSIRO supported the following 9 "Flagships":

Climate Adaptation

Energy Transformed

Food Futures

Light Metals

Minerals Down Under

Future Manufacturing

Preventative Health

Water for a Healthy Country

Wealth from Oceans

Sustainable Agriculture

In April 2007, funding for a new Flagship was announced by the Federal government. It will be investigating the effects of Climate Change.

The Air Quality Modelling and Dispersion Team

CSIRO's Air Quality Modelling and Dispersion Team is a part of the Marine and Atmospheric Research division.

Some of the widely used air quality dispersion models developed by CSIRO are:

TAPM LADM AUSPLUME AUSPUFF DISPMOD

The "Australian Air Quality Forecasting System" is provided jointly by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. The Bureau of Meteorology generates the high resolution weather forecasts and CSIRO has created computer models to calculate pollution levels.

History

A precursor to CSIRO, the Advisory Council of Science and Industry, was established in 1916 at the initiative of Prime Minister Billy Hughes. However, the Advisory Council struggled with insufficient funding during the First World War. In 1920 the Council was renamed the "Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry", and was led by George Handley Knibbs (1921–26), but continued to struggle financially.

In 1926 ''The Science and Industry Research Act'' replaced the Institute with the 'Council for Scientific and Industrial Research' (CSIR). The CSIR was structured to represent the federal structure of Australian government, and had state-level committees and a central council. As well as this improved structure, the CSIR benefited from strong bureaucratic management under George Julius, David Rivett, and Arnold Richardson. CSIR research focussed on primary and secondary industries. Early in its existence, it established divisions studying animal health and animal nutrition. After the depression, the CSIR extended into secondary industries such as manufacturing.

CSIRO today has expanded into a wider range of scientific inquiry. This expansion began with the establishment of CSIRO in 1949 which, as well as a name change, reconstituted the organisation and its administrative structure. Under Ian Clunies Ross as chairman, CSIRO pursued new areas such as radioastronomy and industrial chemistry.

Notable Inventions

Notable inventions and breakthroughs by CSIRO include:

A4 DSP chip

Aerogard, insect repellent

Atomic absorption spectroscopy

Biological control of Salvinia

Gene shears

Development of Linola (a flax variety with low alpha-linolenic acid content) with a longer life used as a stockfeed

Parkes Radio Telescope

Microwave landing system, a microwave approach and landing system for aircraft

Polymer banknote

Relenza flu drug

'Softly' woolens detergent

X-ray phase contrast imaging

Use of myxomatosis and calicivirus to control rabbit numbers

The permanent pleat for fabrics

Wi-Fi

Historic research

CSIRO owned the first computer in Australia, CSIRAC, built as part of a project began in the Sydney Radiophysics Laboratory in 1947. The CSIR Mk 1 ran its first program in 1949, the fifth electronic computer in the world. It was over 1000 times faster than the mechanical calculators available at the time. It was decommissioned in 1955 and recommissioned in Melbourne as CSIRAC in 1956 as a general purpose computing machine used by over 700 projects until 1964. The CSIRAC is the only surviving first-generation computer in the world.

Between 1965 and 1985, Dr. George Bornemissza of CSIRO's Division of Entomology founded and led the Australian Dung Beetle Project. Dr. Bornemissza, upon settling in Australia from Hungary in 1951, noticed that the pastureland was covered in dry cattle dung pads which did not seem to be recycled into the soil and caused areas of rank pasture that was unpalatable to the cattle. He proposed that the reason for this was that native Australian dung beetles, which had co-evolved alongside the marsupials (which produce dung very different in its composition from cattle), were not adapted to utilise cattle dung for their nutrition and breeding, since cattle had only relatively recently been introduced to the continent in the 1880s. The Australian Dung Beetle Project therefore, sought to introduce species of dung beetle from South Africa and Europe (which had co-evolved alongside bovids) in order to improve the fertility and quality of cattle pastures. 23 species were successfully introduced throughout the duration of the project and also had the effect of reducing the pestilent bush fly population by 90%..

Domain name

CSIRO was the first Australian organisation to start using the internet, and as such was free to register the second-level domain csiro.au (as opposed to csiro.org.au or csiro.com.au). Guidelines were introduced in 1996 to regulate the use of the .au domain.

Chief Executives

Chief Executive	! Period in office
Albert Rivett	1 January 1927–31 December 1945
Arnold Richardson	1 January 1946–18 April 1949
Frederick White	19 April 1949–13 December 1956
Stewart Bastow	1 January 1957–30 June 1959
''No designated chief executive''	1 July 1959–4 December 1986
Keith Boardman (acting)	5 December 1986–4 March 1987
Keith Boardman	5 March 1987–4 March 1990
John Stocker (scientist)	John Stocker	5 March 1990–4 March 1995
Roy Green (scientist)	Roy Green (acting)	5 March 1995–20 July 1995
Roy Green	21 July 1995–2 January 1996
Roy Green (acting)	3 January 1996–4 February 1996
Malcolm McIntosh	5 February 1996–7 February 2000
Colin Adam (acting)	7 February 2000–14 January 2001
Geoff Garrett	15 January 2001–31 December 2008
Megan Clark	January 2009

Recent controversies

Diet book

In 2005 the organisation also gained worldwide attention (and criticism) for publishing and promoting the ''Total Wellbeing Diet'' book which features a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. The book has sold over half a million copies in Australia and over 100,000 overseas but was criticised in an editorial by ''Nature'' for giving scientific credence to a "fashionable" diet book sponsored by meat and dairy industries.

802.11 patent

CSIRO has consistently maintained that it owns the rights to a key part of modern IEEE 802.11 protocols with . It declined to sign a Letter of Assurance that no lawsuits would be filed over its use in the 802.11n currently gaining acceptance. In late November 2007, CSIRO won a lawsuit against Buffalo Technology, with an injunction that Buffalo must stop supplying AirStation products that infringe on the 802.11 patent.

On September 19, 2008, the Federal Circuit ruled in Buffalo’s favour and remanded the case to the district court ruling that the district court’s Summary Judgement was insufficient on the merits of obviousness of CSIRO’s patent. Therefore, this case was to be tried again before the district court. In this connection Buffalo was hopeful that it would shortly be permitted to, once again, sell IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g compliant products in the United States. On the 13 July 2009 Buffalo announced the settlement of the patent infringement action.

As of the 23 April 2009, the CSIRO has obtained settlements from most of the other organisations involved, including Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Asus, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Nintendo, Toshiba, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton and 3Com.

See also

Australia Telescope National Facility

Australian Animal Health Laboratory

Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme

Australian Dung Beetle Project

Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs)

CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

CSIRO Publishing

Funnelback

George Bornemissza

Peter Rathjen

Australian Space Research Institute

References

Bibliography

Currie, George; Graham, John, ''The Origins of CSIRO: Science and the Commonwealth Government, 1901-1926'', CSIRO, Melbourne, 1966

External links

CSIRO Webpage

History of CSIRO

Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). (1949-) National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for CSIRO

Commonwealth of Australia. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). (1926-1949) National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for CSIR

Patent Suit

CSIRO Publishing

The Australian e-Health Research Centre

Category:Scientific institutions Category:Scientific organisations based in Australia Category:Air dispersion modeling Category:Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia Category:Research institutes in Australia

de:Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation fr:Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ga:CSIRO hr:Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ja:オーストラリア連邦科学産業研究機構 pt:Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ru:Государственное объединение научных и прикладных исследований simple:Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation zh:联邦科学与工业研究组织

Coordinates	33°55′31″N18°25′26″N
name	James Bradfield
constituency mp	Barton
parliament	Australian
predecessor	Leonard Reynolds
successor	Gary Punch
term start	13 December 1975
term end	5 March 1983
birth date	July 30, 1933
birth place	Sydney, New South Wales
death date	November 19, 1989
nationality	Australian
party	Liberal Party of Australia
occupation	Company manager
footnotes	}}

James Mark Bradfield (30 July 1933 – 19 November 1989) was an Australian politician. Born in Sydney, he was a company manager and underwent military service in 1951. In 1975, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as the Liberal member for Barton, and held the seat throughout the length of the Fraser government. He was defeated in 1983 by Gary Punch, and was unsuccessful in an attempt to regain the seat in 1984. He died in 1989.

References

Category:Liberal Party of Australia politicians Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Barton Category:Members of the Australian House of Representatives Category:1933 births Category:1989 deaths