Department of Defence

ASPI entered into a five-year funding agreement with the Australian Government through the Department of Defence. Under the agreement, the department provides ASPI with a one-off grant of $4 million for each of financial years 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 and 2022–23.

Australian Government funding is a key enabler of our operations. It covers much of our annual employee costs and operating overheads and those elements of the research and events programs that are defined in the funding agreement.

Figure 7: Department of Defence core funding as a proportion of ASPI’s total income, 2000–01 to 2019–20

* During FY2019–20, ASPI adopted two new accounting standards for the recognition of sponsorship income. For comparison, had we treated sponsorship income in the same way to previous financial years, the result would have been 39%.

Other sources of funding

The government requires ASPI to develop funding options in addition to the Defence funding agreement to enable the institute to grow and pursue additional research. With the growth of ASPI’s areas of research, the percentage of income provided by Defence has been diminishing (Figure 7). Our wider work on non-Defence national security is sustained by other sources of funding, most notably other government entities, through contributions for specific program areas or projects (shown as ‘Revenue from Contracts’ in Figure 8) and from private-sector sponsorship.

Figure 8: Sources of income other than Department of Defence core funding, 2001–02 to 2019–20

Sponsorship is also an important source of additional funding for ASPI and is the key enabler for many events. We have worked hard to secure sponsors and in 2019–20 continued to foster deeper relationships with sponsors through our corporate sponsorship program. Under the program, ASPI seeks continuing commitments from private enterprises that share our objectives for national security and public debate, while unambiguously maintaining our independence in research, publications, advice and comment.

During FY2019-2020, ASPI adopted two new accounting standards (AASB 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers and AASB 1058 Income of Not-for-Profit Entities) for the recognition of our revenue. As a result, sponsorship agreements signed during the financial year were immediately recognised as revenue upon receipt, rather than gradually throughout the 12 months period. For comparison, under the old standard, the result would have been approximately $6.3M or 61% of total funding.

Other additional income derives from event registration fees and interest on retained funds (‘Other’ in Figure 8).

Corporate sponsors during 2019–20 were:
  .au Domain Administration Ltd
  Alion Science and Technology Corporation
  Amazon Web Services Australia Pty Ltd
  Attorney-General’s Department
  Australian Civil–Military Centre
  Australian Computer Society
  Australian Mission to the UN
  Australian National University
  Australian Office Taipei
  Bond University
  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  Cisco Systems Australia Pty Ltd
  CT Intelligence and Insights
  Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre Limited
  Defence Portfolio
  Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment
  Department of Defence
  Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
  Department of Home Affairs
  Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
  Embassy of Israel
  Embassy of Japan
  Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
  Engineers Australia
  Facebook Australia Pty Ltd
  Fortinet
  German Marshall Fund
  Google Australia Pty Limited
  Institute for War and Peace Reporting
  IQPC Ltd
  Jacobs Australia
  Japan Institute of International Affairs
  Kiah Consulting
  Lendlease
  Lockheed Martin
  Macquarie Telecom Pty Ltd
  Microsoft Pty Ltd
  National Archives of Australia
  NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
  Naval Group Australia
  Northern Territory Airports Pty Ltd
  Northern Territory Government
  Northrop Grumman
  Omni Executive
  Oracle Australia
  Palo Alto Networks (Australia) Pty Ltd
  Queensland Police Service
  Rafael
  Raytheon
  Saab Australia
  Senetas Corporation Limited
  Services Australia
  Splunk Technology
  Thales Australia
  The Pratt Foundation
  UK Embassy in China
  University of Melbourne
  Twitter Inc.
  UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
  University of British Columbia
  UpGuard, Inc
  US State Department
  US Embassy Canberra