Introduction and acknowledgements

Good morning, everyone, it’s great to be with you.

I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, the Traditional Owners of the land we’re meeting on today.

I extend my respect to Elders past and present, and to any First Nations Australians here this morning.

In September, the Chief Scientist and I visited Budj Bim, the Cultural Landscape of the Gunditjmara people in South-western Victoria, where the earliest examples of aquaculture technologies, tens of kilometres long and more than 6,000 years old, are found.

It’s a good reminder, for all of us, that Australian innovation has the deepest of histories.

Patricia Kelly and Jane O’Dwyer at Cooperative Research Australia – thank you for the invitation to come and talk with you all this morning.

David Thodey AO and Catherine Livingstone AC, Co-Patrons of the National Innovation Policy Forum and Chancellors of their respective universities.

Chief Scientist Professor Tony Haymet and Chief Defence Scientist Professor Tanya Munro – great to see you both here.

Distinguished Professor Chennupati Jagadish, President, Australian Academy of Science, very nice to see you again.

And to all of the distinguished leaders here from the research and innovation communities and institutions, welcome.

Innovation is vital for Australian prosperity, living standards and national resilience.

And that means innovation policy – its design and implementation – is itself important for prosperity, living standards and national resilience.

Inclusive innovation and national challenges

But even for those of us who think carefully about these things, ‘innovation’ can be a relatively grey word.

For everyday Australians, it’s a word that tends to conjure up images of black skivvies and white lab coats.

When the Turnbull Government launched its National Innovation and Science Agenda – a decade ago, would you believe – it leaned heavily on that conception of innovation.

Rather too heavily, as it turned out.

What was missing from that picture was an understanding of the role that blue-collar workers play in a properly functioning national innovation system.  

Just as important as the risk-tolerant entrepreneurialism of the tech sector, or the amazing, life-changing work of Australian scientists, vital to lifting productivity in Australian work and industry.

Their talent and capacity, their experience and judgement should not be overlooked in good innovation policy design.

Innovation and a Future Made in Australia

Some innovation is incidental, incremental, sometimes accidental.

The best type of Australian innovation is focussed and mission led.

There are big national challenges in front of Australia.

Greater economic and geostrategic competition, trade volatility, the global shift to low carbon industrial production and energy system, and the effort to adopt AI in ways that benefit every Australian.

And Australia will not solve those challenges without clarity of purpose and alignment of effort.

As part of the Albanese Government’s Future Made in Australia agenda, I want to see greater national coordination of our national research and innovation talents to address those national challenges.

Australia is well placed to maximise the opportunities arising from global energy and industrial decarbonisation.

Our ancient continent is rich in strategic and critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, iron ore, copper – and dozen more besides – essential elements that are required for clean energy generation, transmission and storage systems, communication, computational capability, space exploration, weapons and defence systems and every aspect of advanced manufacturing.

Tonight, we will recognise some of the country’s best and brightest at the annual Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science.

I’ll be there, along with the Prime Minister, as we celebrate the brilliant minds – scientists, researchers, innovators, First Nations Australians and educators – whose work is pushing boundaries, solving real-world challenges, and shaping a brighter future.

Since a Future Made in Australia was announced, the government has driven programs to support solar and clean energy manufacturing, as well as legislating production tax incentives for critical minerals processing and hydrogen. 

Processing and producing critical metal products onshore is one of Australia’s biggest opportunities.

The Future Made in Australia agenda, along with the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, are helping Australia seize that opportunity. 

These investments will ensure that Australia is well positioned to decarbonise industrial operations, contribute to global efforts to reduce carbon emissions, compete in global markets and create new clean energy industries.

This is a sector where progress is not dependent upon government incentives to get the business model right – I am determined to lead efforts for more alignment and national effort across our research institutions which points R&D in a national sprint to deliver technological pathways to efficient iron, and strategic and critical minerals products.

Science, Research and SERD

Science and research are at the heart of building a more productive, resilient and sustainable economy that provides good jobs.

Australia has a wealth of scientific expertise and talent at its disposal and world-class research facilities across the university sector, private industry and the CSIRO.

Australian researchers and foundational research have paved the way for globally transformative discoveries.

Wi-Fi technology. The plastic bank note. The cochlear implant. The C-PAP breathing machine. And so much else.

And parts of Australia’s R&D system are effective at acting on those kinds of discoveries.

The Trailblazer Universities Program has pooled capital from universities, industry and government so that Australia can lift capability in critical minerals processing, clean energy manufacturing, defence industry, food and beverage manufacturing and more.

And for thirty years, Cooperative Research Centres Programs have been pairing public investment with private capital to underwrite major breakthroughs in medical technology, advanced manufacturing and decarbonisation (among others) and put those discoveries in practice in partnership with Australian workers.

But sometimes, the investment and effort driving Australian research are not sufficiently joined up to make the most of our current advantages and to lead to future capabilities in the long-term national interest.

For example, Australia has made significant investments in battery technology over the past decade.

We have a wealth of lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and manganese beneath the ground, as well as deep expertise in mining and manufacturing processes across the workforce.

But public and private investments have not always been coordinated to provide the best support for new production technologies, the right linkages between processing and production capability, and the right commercialisation opportunities.  

Australia should be a global leader in battery supply chains, from minerals to manufacturing, and manufacturing to recycling today.

This government has backed that industry with a National Battery Plan and the $500 million Battery Breakthrough Initiative.

There’s more work on the horizon to make sure Australian industries like this one have the discoveries, experimentation and scaling-up opportunities they need for real innovation.

In your discussions today, I’m particularly interested in hearing how we can smooth the bumps in the road from raw materials to manufactured goods, and from research techniques to industrial capability.

How we can leverage existing infrastructure across the R&D system – at research-intensive universities, the CSIRO, key CRCs and elsewhere – to serve Australia’s National Science and Research Priorities.

And how we can consolidate effort and purpose on the kinds of research that lead to major advances that benefit all Australians.

The Strategic Examination of Research and Development led by an expert independent panel, including – what was the description – general significant individuals like Ian Chubb, will deliver a report at the end of this year that will subject our research and development systems to do some critical analysis and set out a pathway to delivering greater coordination that sets Australia up for success.

It has been really encouraging to see the strong level of engagement with the SERD process to date.

More than 800 responses from industry, academics, researchers, government and other stakeholders.

And of course, it's natural in that process for each of the institutions, and individuals, to come at this set of questions from the interest of their own research and their own, you know, material interest in reform of the system. It's entirely natural and correct.

But the best of that is when we lift our heads up, you know, and focus on what is in the national interest here. What do we give? How do we connect? How do we deliver a more aligned system in the interest of Australia and Australians?

The SERD panel has already highlighted that the current system is fragmented, under leveraged and, in some cases, misaligned with national priorities.

There are 160 research related programs delivered across 14 portfolios of government at last count. And you sort of drop down to the state government level, and it becomes more dispersed still.

A particularly relevant theme in the submissions was the current public funding models, business R&D incentives, and research metrics favour safe, incremental research, rather than bold and purposeful and experimental ideas.

The panel has continually heard about the importance of cultural change, building a national appetite for risk, experimentation and long-term thinking in the public and private sectors.

The evidence shows that firms introducing novel innovations are up to 70% more productive than those sticking to familiar ground.

Some fantastic research that Roy green pointed me towards, from McKinsey, that points to the role of national champions in innovation and the impact that individual firms have, individual large firms have on the productive capability of economies around the world.

Not just disaggregated, you know, productivity reform, but the impact that individual, large firms can have.

And, you know, let’s reflect for a moment, about what might have happened a decade ago, 11 or 12 years ago, when we lost the automotive sector in Australia, and what that meant for our national innovation systems, what that meant for management capability, and the lost opportunities that will be very difficult and challenging to recover in areas like battery technology, with the absence of large global investors with capacity and scale to contribute to our innovation systems.

So, we need more.

The panel is now considering the feedback it's received and refining its recommendations ahead of final advice to government.

Conclusion

As I say, we have big challenges, and a lot of work to do.

I really think this is an enormous opportunity, over the course of today, to follow Alfred's injunction at the beginning: to purposefully collaborate, to think about the opportunities across our CRCs, to grab hold of those incidental conversations about the relationship between our research programs, and really use the course of today's discussions as purposefully and mindfully as we all can.

And I'll try and bring the same spirit of thoughtful collaboration to my engagement with my colleagues over the course of Question Time in just a few hours.

Thanks very much. Go well.