This is the transcript of a speech by President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC, at the Australian Council of Deans of Science (ACDS) Annual Conference Gala Dinner. It was delivered on 21 October 2025 at the Shine Dome.
Check against delivery.
Good evening and thank you Tony for that introduction.
I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people.
And pay my respect to their Elders, past, present and emerging.
I also acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners and the Elders of all the lands on which the Academy operates, and its Fellows live and work.
It’s a pleasure to host you here at the Shine Dome for your annual gala dinner.
My apologies I could not join you earlier. I’ve just come from an Academy Council dinner.
Thank you, Jacqui and Tony, for the invitation to speak this evening.
I was pleased we were both able to participate in a successful Australian scientific delegation to Indonesia in July.
The visit strengthened ties with one of our nearest and strategically significant neighbours and is leading to deeper collaboration between Indonesian and Australian science in higher education and research.
It also gave me and the Academy a chance to get to know Jacqui, Tony and the ACDS and compare notes on our future strategic directions.
I’d like to acknowledge all the distinguished guests here tonight. It’s great to see representatives here from government, industry, the Academy’s Fellowship, and across the sector.
Before I share my reflections on some of the opportunities and challenges ahead for Australian university science, my congratulations to the Australian Council of Deans of Science on your 30-year anniversary.
This year also marks a 30th anniversary for me: 1995 was the year I became an Australian citizen.
I am deeply grateful, like others born overseas, for the opportunity to call Australia home.
It has been a privilege to build a successful science career in our great country.
The Deans of Science
The Science Deans hold a unique place in the Australian higher education ecosystem.
You have been the force behind significant reforms in the sector.
I know how seriously you take your commitments to teaching, learning and research.
Your efforts to develop and implement Science Threshold Learning Outcomes to drive literacy and standards in teaching and learning speak to your sector-wide and nationwide commitment to science education and excellence in undergraduate education.
It’s important to acknowledge that the task and environment you operate in have become both increasingly challenging and complex.
Educating the next generation and keeping vital university research going is performed with one hand tied behind your back as you plough through the administration and processes that come with growing institutions operating in a complex world.
Your work is done with a complex political and geopolitical backdrop.
There is an expectation that you develop the future workforce.
That you create a higher education system that delivers the best results for students, industry and the community.
Restrictions are placed on global research partners as foreign interference threats grow.
All this at a time when there is deliberate undermining of evidence-based institutions like universities.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have had to work hard to create spaces that are engaging and that provide a rich education experience.
As well as manage use and misuse of generative AI in learning.
As a nation, we aspire to higher education that is accessible to all regardless of postcode, place of birth, or socio-economic status.
Achieving this is not without its challenges.
Especially as student numbers grow.
Any lecturer will tell you how challenging it is to maintain standards of teaching excellence when student-to-teaching ratios are, on average, 24:1 in Australia.
Compare this to 11:1 in the UK.
Students’ learning experience is important.
It helps in course completion, career formation, and workforce preparedness.
And as I will mention later, it helps fill national science capability gaps.
Where science graduates end up in industry, it improves industry’s absorptive capacity.
If an industry can identify, adopt, and apply knowledge and research findings, they innovate, are more likely to invest in R&D, and are more responsive to market changes.
Adding to the complex environment you operate in is the fact that discovery research is inadequately funded and most government programs that seek to stimulate collaboration between academia and industry place the onus on universities to reach out to industry.
Friends, universities are at a crossroads.
Incentivised by successive governments to attract growing numbers of students – especially foreign students to improve balance sheets and subsidise research.
And shunned for not maintaining a social compact by those same political masters.
Government’s need to maintain a social contract with voters is at odds with its technocratic contract with universities.
Where has this left universities?
Like all industries that monetise a public good, universities are trapped between wealth creation and delivering the human right to education regardless of postcode or place of birth.
We also see this balancing act between market and mission in the provision of aged care, childcare and housing.
It doesn’t end well.
Peter Lewis rightly asks in one of his columns in The Guardian:
“If our education industry makes us richer but dumber, is it really a system of higher learning or just another market transaction where credentials are dispensed like a medieval church selling indulgences?”
I do not suggest that this is the approach to teaching and research taken by the Deans of Science, but the question does illustrate the crossroads universities face.
It is my hope that in Australia we can have a rational and balanced discourse about higher education as an industry supporting our economy, as a common good, as a social responsibility, and as a means to elevate all of us – whether we are standing in a high tech industry, in a factory, a research lab, or indeed the House of Representatives.
Australian science, Australia’s future: Science 2035
I’d now like to turn to Australia’s science capability.
Recently, the Academy released a landmark report: Australian science, Australia’s future: Science 2035. The report examines our science capability and workforce requirements over the next 10 years.
The report highlights gaps across the STEM workforce, that if not filled, will dramatically hinder our capacity to meet the challenges of our future.
The report found the current pipeline and study choices of students are not aligned with the needs of our future workforce. It also highlighted declining STEM participation and teacher shortages.
It showed us that in areas of critical importance to be able to support our economy into the future, we have gaps.
In geoscience and materials science in particular, we see existing gaps in capability that stand to worsen over the coming decade.
We are seeing compounding effects, where we are training fewer people in these skills. Forecasting shows an ageing workforce and we are attracting fewer skilled migrants.
In these areas where Australia is facing serious capability gaps, other nations are also competing to attract skilled workers with these specialisations.
All of this depletes our reservoir of expertise, and with it, our ability to control our own destiny in a rapidly changing world. Our ability to give our children and grandchildren a prosperous future.
If Australia wants to be ready for what’s next, it needs to invest in the people who will shape it.
Our education capability should be framed as a foundation for Australia’s national science capability.
What is clear is that we must enlist the experience, expertise and insights of our Science Deans to inspire, shape and build Australia’s future STEM workforce.
Your important role in illustrating the many exciting and diverse career paths available to science graduates cannot be underestimated.
An agricultural science student must know that they can aspire to a high-tech job in precision agriculture.
A physics graduate could pursue a career in nuclear science supporting national priorities, such as the AUKUS security pact, or using novel materials to solve old problems.
I believe there is also an opportunity for university science to work more closely with secondary schools to illustrate the career pathways that will help our nation fill these capability gaps.
And more, to engender a sense of possibility, of optimism, and of wonder that a career in science can bring.
I know many of you do this and I thank you for it.
The Cube at QUT is a great example of work already happening in this space.
It delivers unique interactive learning experiences that demystify research and communicate STEM concepts to secondary students and the broader public.
Discovery research
I’d like to conclude by reflecting on the value of discovery research.
I know I’m preaching to the converted among Science Deans!
We are privileged to see remarkable stories of discovery every single day.
Discoveries that go on to become life-changing technologies, or that provide strategic defence capability.
We must get better at sharing these stories with the public.
Consider the research of Academy Fellow Professor Richard Robson from the University of Melbourne, who a few weeks ago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
His fundamental research has myriad applications: from harvesting water from the air, to drug delivery and even carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.
Richard is believed to be the first Australian Nobel Prize winner whose research was funded by the ARC. Other than Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC, all other winners conducted their seminal work abroad or were funded by other sources.
Professor Robson’s work shows that groundbreaking discoveries take time, but they happen, especially when we back excellence.
I do sometimes wonder if in today’s hyper-competitive research environment whether Richard’s work would have been backed or would have passed the ARC’s National Interest Test!
It is often noted that the quality and volume of Australia’s fundamental research effort is disproportionate to our population size.
This is in no small part due to the efforts of people in this room.
But punching above our weight does not mean Australia’s discovery research effort is adequately funded, nor can it sustain long-term funding cuts.
ARC and NHMRC funding has declined in real terms for more than a decade and a smaller proportion of it is directed to fundamental research.
Our publicly funded research agencies have systemic under-resourcing issues.
The Academy holds concerns that the Strategic Examination of Research and Development has so far offered no proposals aimed at boosting funding for discovery research – the wellspring of innovation.
There is no ‘D’ without ‘R’.
This is despite the Academy proposing a temporary R&D levy that is budget-positive; incentivises low-intensity R&D companies to invest in R&D; and creates a new revenue stream that can support fundamental research.
Our proposal is modelled on R&D levies in the agricultural and grains sector that have been successfully applied since 1989, are well tolerated, and have enabled significant and continuous innovations in these sectors.
That is why it is more important than ever that we speak with one voice, and we keep advocating for a robust R&D system able to serve the national interest.
Despite the significant challenges facing Australia and the globe, I remain optimistic about the future of our country.
We are a country of creativity and opportunity. I saw this when I arrived in 1990 and it is still true today.
I also see a bright future for Australian university science – one that is fuelled by optimism and the courage to act.
Let’s continue to work together and to speak with one voice to address the challenges ahead.
Thank you.
I’d now welcome any of your questions or comments.
-Ends-
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