When CSIRO officials looked at the budget papers in May 2014, they could see that winter was coming.
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Not only was the annual chill descending on Canberra, but in its first budget, the Abbott government announced more than $110 million would be stripped from the already cash-strapped organisation over four years.
On top of job losses under Labor (due to an "efficiency" drive), the nation's science agency hunkered down for hundreds more redundancies. Some CSIRO sites closed and there were reports scientists were being kept from their research to clean laboratories and sort mail, while others within the organisation talked about it being "cut into the bone".
But is the sun starting to shine again on the beleaguered CSIRO? The Turnbull government's innovation plan on Monday revealed that $165 million in federal funds is coming its way.
This includes about $70 million for an innovation fund aimed at commercialising research. As the Coalition explained on Monday: "There is a gap for very early stage funding to translate research into commercial outcomes."
There is also $20 million to boost CSIRO's "accelerator program", which helps other publicly funded research bodies commercialise their research.
And there is a further $75 million to "make the most" of a "data-driven economy". These funds will go to the CSIRO's new research unit, Data61, to work on data innovation and cyber-security research.
Australia's Chief Scientist Ian Chubb said the funding suggested CSIRO was being brought in from the cold, "in a way".
"What it shows is that there's confidence CSIRO has the capacity and capability to manage this innovation fund on behalf of the nation," Professor Chubb said.
"Because it's about supporting researchers wherever they may be, not just within CSIRO."
Professor Chubb said CSIRO was a "very important part" of Australia's scientific infrastructure, but noted that it was a "relatively small part" when compared with universities' spending on science and mathematics research.
"So the real trick for us these days is to get them to work together better than they ever have ... which is why I think that fund could be a very significant step," he said.
While the Community and Public Sector Union and CSIRO Staff Association said the funding was a "step in the right direction", they cautioned that the recent loss of expertise through so many redundancies could not be fully recovered.
Staff association secretary Sam Popovski said the damage had "already been done", with funding cuts resulting in "the cancellation of critical research and the loss of 1400 jobs over a two-year period".
"More still needs to be done to rebuild government laboratories."
Labor also argued that CSIRO was still "worse off" under the Turnbull government, pointing to recent job losses.
Opposition spokesman for research and innovation Kim Carr also said merging National ICT Australia with CSIRO to form Data61 - a previous Coalition government decision - would see an "effective cut" of $84 million from ICT research.
When asked if Labor would fully restore funds to CSIRO if it won government, Labor frontbencher Ed Husic told Sky News a decision would "have to wait until we get closer to the election".
