The term "Centre of Excellence" is common marketing terminology used by some Australian government organisations for titles of science research groups.

[1] NICTA's role was to pursue potentially economically significant ICT related research for the Australian economy.

Australian Federal Government funding of NICTA was due to expire in June 2016 and there was a concerted effort to secure a merger with CSIRO.

This merger was realised in due course as the option of last resort as NICTA lost all Federal funding and CSIRO had significant cuts.

As of August 2015, the merger had not been finalized[10] and Professor Robert (Bob) Williamson (who also headed NICTA's Machine Learning Research Group) was acting and terminal CEO.

The Neville Roach Laboratory was moved from its standalone location onto the University of New South Wales main campus in July 2015 as a cost saving measure.