The Centre's role is to evaluate the performance of Australian thermal coals in commercial and emerging utilisation technologies, not to develop such technology, except insofar as research may disclose opportunities to optimise process or equipment design for Australian coals. The principal purpose of the research is to ensure that marketing of Participants coals is well informed technically, not to advantage particular Participants nor, primarily, to create intellectual property for commercialisation directly. Achievement of this purpose particularly requires effective collaboration with utilisation plant suppliers and operators. The interests of utility Participants are to be served by providing technical support for their current operations, particularly in the areas of boiler performance and emission control, and for their evaluations of new technology for future plant or repowering applications. The Centre's cash resources are pooled and used to fund all projects in the research program.
Participants have equal access to all results.
The main economic return expected from the research is that which may be derived from its results by Industry Participants in their commercial activities. The scale and national importance of those activities is such that enhanced success in them is likely to bring with it substantial public benefit. The national objectives of the Cooperative Research Centres Program are to increase the amount and quality of research and postgraduate education by promoting cooperative centres of research concentration and to capture the benefits by active involvement of research users. It is envisaged that cooperation between research institutions will enable research to be done that would otherwise not have been done or not done as well. It is intended that collaboration between research and industry participants should focus the research appropriately and result in better outcomes in terms of skill development, technology transfer and commercialisation.