CSIRO announces changes at Merbein site

This is in light of the recent federal budget allocation of funding to CSIRO and CSIRO’s research direction setting process, the Science Investment Process (SIP), which has resulted in CSIRO deciding to close its Merbein site.

“Our staff at Merbein are greatly valued by CSIRO and have produced significant research outcomes for the horticultural and viticultural industries,” says the Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry, Dr Jeremy Burdon.

“We have had to make this tough decision to close our Merbein site largely because of the budget shortfalls and the need to re-evaluate all CSIRO properties and sites to accommodate this change.”

It is estimated that 30 staff will be directly affected by the Merbein site closure. 

“Staff at Merbein have been advised of the site’s closure and we will be supporting them through this change. Our staff are our most important asset and we want to maintain as many of them as we can.”

“It is expected that most of staff will be invited to relocate to Adelaide or elsewhere, some may be maintained in Merbein to manage remaining facilities and some may be offered redundancies.”

CSIRO has a well established and robust process for the review and prioritisation of investments in research and support programs – the Science Investment Process (SIP).

The SIP provides a rigorous and systematic approach for prioritising research investments across CSIRO ensuring that skills and resources are built and focused on the most important issues for Australia.

“As part of the Science Investment Process it has been decided that our leading wine research program will be relocated to our Adelaide site, but we will unfortunately have to scale back our horticultural crop research at Merbein,” Dr Burdon says.

“Our Adelaide laboratories already undertake wine research. We will consolidate all our wine research there to provide a critical mass of scientists and resources to better deliver research outcomes to the viticulture industry.

“It is with great regret that CSIRO announces the closure of its Merbein facility, but in light of the budget shortfalls, and CSIRO’s Science Investment Process that sets the research direction for the organisation, there were no other alternatives,” he says.