The CBA's main aims are:

• To promote collaborative biodiversity science across ANU, UC and CSIRO that will develop and demonstrate novel approaches to biodiversity discovery and analysis.
• To build capacity through training of graduate and postdoctoral scholars.
• To incorporate new knowledge on Australia’s biodiversity into Commonwealth and State-level conservation policy and management.

This is being achieved by:

• Supporting pilot projects co-proposed by ANU, UC and CSIRO research scientists, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students.
• Supporting and coordinating external visitors and CBA members to present training workshops and seminars.
• Supporting and hosting national conferences.
• Supporting co-supervised honours students.
• Collating and connecting biodiversity news and events across the ANU-UC-CSIRO biology community.
• Supporting the exchange of scientific and policy knowledge, perspectives and challenges amongst researchers, policy makers and managers.