The organisation has also cut its carbon footprint, asking staff to use webcams to cut greenhouse emissions from too-frequent air travel.

The peak science agency's annual report, tabled in Federal Parliament yesterday, shows a 90 per cent increase in royalty payments from patents.

The boost is due to successful court action in the United States to secure payments for the use of CSIRO wireless technologies the basis of wi-fi networks used worldwide in billions of mobile computing and communication devices.

The annual report shows the number of CSIRO staff redundancies is down by 50 per cent on last year.

External investment by the private sector in the agency's national research flagships has also increased, from $94 million last financial year to just over $128million.

CSIRO received a record result of $230 million in revenue from intellectual property, up from $81 million last year. The organisation had budgeted for a deficit of $34 million.

Total expenses were over budget by $57.8 million, largely due to new salary and superannuation agreements negotiated last year by the CSIRO staff association.