The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program was established and is
supported by the Australian Government at a total cost of $140 million
per year. Six of these centres have been established to help Australia's
mineral industry: three in exploration, one in mining and mineral
processing and two in extractive metallurgy. Since the CRC Program has
now been in operation for five years, it is a good time to ask whether the
minerals industry is being served adequately by these centres. In this paper, the performance of one CRC, namely the A J Parker
Cooperative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy, will be discussed in
terms of the objectives of the CRC Program. As will be shown, the Parker
Centre has made considerable progress since its establishment in 1992.