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Anna-Maria, thank you for that introduction.
Selina, we appreciate your generous welcome to us here on Ngunnawal land.
Good evening and welcome all.
I won’t repeat the acknowledgement of the many distinguished guests we have here tonight.
Suffice to say a warm thank you to Minister for Industry and Innovation, and Minister for Science, Senator the Hon Tim Ayres.
I know I speak on behalf of everyone in this room, when I say your presence here tonight is deeply appreciated.
And a special thank you to our Gala Dinner event partner, the University of Sydney. This event would not be possible without your support.
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Over the past few days, I have listened to the presentations of our newly elected Fellows.
Their research - and the many ways it has been translated – is awe-inspiring.
The class of 2025 join our Fellowship of stellar Australian scientists who help shape our nation and whose contribution is priceless.
May I take this occasion to thank each and every Fellow for the volunteering your expertise to the Academy and to the nation.
It means science can inform decisions wherever they are made: in our parliaments, our boardrooms, our courts of law, our classrooms, and in our public squares.
Gee, we are a lucky country.
Not only because of our mineral wealth and democratic stability – which we must never take for granted.
We are lucky that so many Fellows, around half of which were born overseas, call Australia home.
Lucky that our research is of the highest quality. So good that it is developed into technologies – too often by other countries.
Lucky that our researchers are such prolific international collaborators enabling Australia to access 97% of the knowledge generated elsewhere, and adapted to the needs of our people.
Our research capability is something we should never take for granted.
The work of researchers is every where.
So ubiquitous it is often invisible to the public – until it is absent.
The sometimes invisible but essential work of the people in this room.
The truth is, whether Australians – or indeed Ministers – see it or not – we need and use research, every day.
We use Geoscience capability to find our mineral wealth.
Agricultural capability to sustain our food exports in the face of climate change.
Data science capability to fuel AI applications across our economy.
And biotechnology capability to underpin healthcare delivery.
Tomorrow, at the Academy’s National Symposium we will hear that these very capabilities are diminishing in a way that jeopardises our ability to meet Australia’s future needs.
For the first time, the Academy has gathered evidence shedding light on capability gaps that we need to address now.
Otherwise, we may find that we don’t have the science we need to participate in a technologically advanced world.
The science we need to develop defence capabilities to secure our nation.
The science we need to diversify our economy by growing new industries.
The science we need to develop medicines to treat and eliminate disease.
And the science we need to adapt to our changing environment.
Without it … our luck will run out.
The Government’s response to the evidence we present tomorrow, needs to be deliberate and decisive.
Government inaction and drift mean we won’t have the knowledge and skills we need as a nation.
Knowledge produced by our Fellows, but also early career researchers who they train.
I’m always filled with hope when I meet the next generation of scientists.
Many are with us tonight, 111 in total, including 26 guests from 11 countries across the Asia-Pacific region.
And how good are our 3 young Aussie innovators? Mabel Day, Dr Auriane Drack and Khoi Nguyen – selected as winners of the Falling Walls competition held on Monday at the Shine Dome.
Their next stop is Berlin to compete with the top 100 young innovators in the world!
I hope you will have the opportunity to meet some of our early career researchers across the room.
They are remarkable, tenacious and ambitious for a better world.
So am I.
That is why I have made supporting the next generation of researchers a key priority of my presidency.
Because they are the hope of the team.
They are the future.
And it is our collective responsibility to give early career researchers the conditions to create knowledge that will help us navigate the future.
Far too many are leaving science at a time when we are in a global race for talent.
They are faced with the unenviable choice of staying in research or buying a home.
Some unable to undertake PhDs because the stipend is below the minimum wage.
Juggling study, multiple jobs and often carer responsibilities.
The research pipeline needs to be replenished.
And that starts with valuing research as an indispensable strategic national asset.
An asset that has become a source of intense global competition and power, without which no nation can remain safe or prosperous.
It’s for these reasons, developed and developing countries have chosen to increase investment in research.
Australia has not.
Our record of R&D investment by multiple governments and business shows a sustained pattern of decline.
We have fallen so far behind the OECD average that it would take an extra $28 billion dollars per annum to reach parity.
A trend that weakens productivity, wage growth, standards of living, and our ability to respond to global volatility.
These threats have consequences for every member of society.
Three years ago, at the Academy’s Gala Dinner I felt hopeful for the nation’s research sector.
The early signs of the Albanese Government, elected in 2022, showed government understood the role of science domestically and internationally.
In 2022, the new Science Minister, the Hon Ed Husic MP, said scientists would see, not only words, but deeds from the Government.
The following year the Prime Minister said he recognised the valuable role that discovery research plays – because not every breakthrough begins with a commercial product already in mind.
In June this year, the Federal Treasurer noted that our economy is not dynamic or innovative enough.
And I’m pleased that R&D featured heavily in the discourse leading up to and during the Economic Roundtable last month.
Minister: During National Science Week just a few weeks ago, you too publicly acknowledged Australia’s low R&D investment.
Thank you for recognising this.
We aren’t keeping up with inflation, let alone fuelling productivity.
This decline is hurting Australia and future generations of Australians.
That’s why, the Academy put forward a revenue generating proposal for Government to consider as part of our submission to the Strategic Examination of R&D.
It may well be the only revenue generating proposal before Government.
System change is required.
There is no silver bullet.
In addition to funding, the Academy’s analysis shows we need to consider new investment models, that balance risk and return for superannuation and other investors.
We need measures to incentivise collaboration between academia and industry that place the onus on industry, not only on researchers.
We need to unleash public procurement to scale innovation.
We need to remove fragmentation across our federation.
We need to change oversubscribed and underperforming tax schemes to incentivise collaboration.
We need to recognise that research infrastructure today is as critical to this century as roads were to the last – not only for use by researchers but for use by industries that wish to innovate.
We need to reward – rather than discourage – mobility between academia and industry.
Where we have effective funding models like the Medical Research Future Fund, let’s continue to direct earning to research as designed.
Surely, we don’t wish to cap cures.
And we need to make use of all the available talent.
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So, am I as hopeful as I was three years ago?
Yes and no.
We eagerly await the recommendations of the Strategic Examination due at the end of this year.
But we fear the funding pool for research will remain unchanged.
Same pie. Cut differently.
Minister, we hear your calls that we need to translate and commercialise more of our excellent research.
We agree with you.
This room is full of people who already translate their research.
But the wellspring of innovation must be replenished by supporting research.
In R&D, there is no D without R.
No researcher applied for a grant to invent the smart phone, AI or gene editing.
New innovations, products, processes and services do not appear fully grown.
They start as ideas.
Tested and developed scientifically by an expert workforce using increasingly advanced technologies.
By people.
The people in this room.
As a nation we want technologies like AI to boost productivity, we want new medicines to keep us healthy, and the most advanced defence capabilities to keep our island nation safe.
To do this, we must be willing to invest sufficiently in the discoveries that create them.
Reversing more than a decade of decline is not the job of government alone.
We need to work in partnership – government, industry, higher education and philanthropy.
The Academy is part of that partnership informing policy with evidence as we have done for the last 71 years.
Independently.
Reliably.
Respectful of all knowledge sources.
And basing all of our advice on evidence.
This is the Academy way.
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Minister, like the early career researcher, you too are the hope of the team.
You will soon be delivered the most comprehensive review of the R&D system in a generation.
It’s a moment in time to set this nation on a course powered by science and technology with its benefits shared across our society.
To shape a system fit for our times.
In 1990, then-Prime Minister Hawke stated that he wanted Australia to be the clever country – one that must reduce its reliance on imported technology and borrowed research.
Sure, we might get by importing technology and borrowing research, but the benefits will be enjoyed by others.
Minister, you have a choice:
Let’s choose an Australia that is flourishing and fair.
A future that is better for the next generation than the one we inherited.
A self-reliant, sustainable and secure Australia as geopolitical certainties waver.
Higher paid and cleaner jobs.
I and everyone in this room wish you courage and conviction as you navigate this moment.
This fork in the road.
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I won’t be here next year to offer you my assessment as this is my last Science at the Shine Dome as President of the Australian Academy of Science.
In May 2026, I’ll be handing the reins over to a new President.
But I wish you success and wisdom in your policy formulations and especially in the Cabinet room and with the Expenditure Review Committee!
I close by thanking the Academy’s staff, under the leadership of Anna-Maria Arabia, for tonight’s gala dinner and Science at the Shine Dome.
With a special thanks to the Academy events team – Lisa Crocker and Jamie Evans – who manage to make Science at the Shine Dome bigger and better every year.
Before we enjoy our entrees, it is customary at Science at the Shine Dome to charge your glasses, and to be up standing if you’re able, to join me in a toast to excellence in Australian science.
To excellence in Australian science.
Thank you, enjoy your entrees.
-Ends-
© 2025 Australian Academy of Science
