NCRIS - $45M

Astronomy Australia Ltd is currently involved in a number of projects that are part of the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) for Radio and Optical Astronomy. The astronomy NCRIS includes a forty-five million dollar grant from the Australian Government announced in November 2006.

The astronomy NCRIS runs until June 2011, and aims to deliver facilities for Australian astronomers to use now, while also investing in the next generation of facilities. The projects are:

Project

NCRIS

AAL contact
AAT refurbishment $4.10M Prof Brian Schmidt
HERMES $5.92M Prof Brian Schmidt
ASKAP $14.6M Prof Jeremy Mould
Gemini and Magellan $10.1M Prof Warrick Couch
GMT DDP $4.80M Prof Warrick Couch
MWA $4.60M Prof Brian Boyle
Antarctic site testing $0.33M Dr David Warren

EIF - $10M

In May 2009 AAL was awarded a $10M EIF (Education Investment Fund) grant from Australian Government. AAL called for Expressions of Interest from the Australian astronomical community to assist in the development of a $10M Investment Plan for astronomy infrastructure. Eight EoIs were chosen plus one project specified by AAL focussed on data management and access.

The Funding Agreement between AAL and the DIISR was signed on 18th June 2010. The final Investment Plan describes the projects:

Project

EIF
HERMES $1.670M
Gemini Instrumentation $0.688M
MWA $3.070M
Antarctic site testing $1.000M
AAOmega detectors upgrade $0.710M
ATCA upgrade $1.471M
Pierre Auger Observatory $0.050M
Data Access Infrastructure $0.300M

The AAL EIF runs from July 2011 to June 2013.