November 03, 2025
This is the transcript of the Ralph Slatyer Address on Science and Society by President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC, on the Cooperative Research Australia 2025 National Innovation Policy Forum. The occasion was held on the National Press Club of Australia on Monday 3 November 2025.
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Good afternoon.
Patricia – thanks on your type introduction.
And thanks all for being right here at the moment
I, too, acknowledge the normal custodians of this land, the Ngunnawal People.
I pay my respects to their Elders, previous and current.
It is an honour to be right here and be part of champions for progress who’ve delivered this address over the years – from throughout academia, politics, enterprise and trade.
I thank Jane O’Dwyer, CEO of Cooperative Research Australia, for this chance, and the Slatyer Family for welcoming me so warmly and encouraging me to talk as freely and boldly – as Ralph did.
I keep in mind Professor Ralph Slatyer fondly.
When I arrived in Australia in 1990 and began at ANU, he was there, on the high.
I used to be on the backside – however that’s an incredible place to be when you might have somebody like Ralph Slatyer to look as much as.
I admired him tremendously.
He was extensively thought to be the chief of Australian science.
I’d argue he nonetheless is, in our nationwide consciousness. He set Australia’s analysis capabilities in movement.
I lately spoke along with his daughter, Judy, who’s right here at the moment along with different members of the Slatyer household, Beth, Tony and Richard.
Judy’s private reflections matched her father’s public persona.
He was type, she mentioned – and curious.
A real optimist, with a pure inclination to hunt out options.
He was a trainer at coronary heart, at all times sharing his data with others.
And a born collaborator, too.
He had the knack for getting individuals onboard.
Judy recalled their household holidays in the Snowy Mountains when she and her siblings have been kids. They spent their days foraging and fossicking.
Only later in life did Judy realise these journeys have been a ploy by her father to proceed his scientific research over the varsity break.
Alpine trees were his specialty, you see.
I’ve my very own recollections of Ralph’s inquisitive nature.
He met each problem with real curiosity.
Every downside had an answer simply ready to be found.
And Ralph was at all times optimistic.
He believed science was the important thing to creating the lives of Australians higher – and our nation higher.
That was when ‘the clever country’ entered the Australian vernacular.
Hawke was Prime Minister; Slatyer his trusted science adviser.
They set out on a quest to construct a data economic system in order that Australia may loosen its reliance on minerals and agriculture.
And on imported technology and borrowed analysis.
As one of Hawke’s ministers, John Dawkins, mentioned on the time, I quote:
“We cannot enter the next century rollicking on the sheep’s back or creaking and swaying in some coal truck.”
Collaboration was on the coronary heart of this mission.
As , it was Ralph Slatyer who established the Cooperative Research Centres, bringing collectively authorities, trade and researchers in a method Australia had by no means performed earlier than to gas what he hoped could be a seismic ‘knowledge lift’ into the subsequent millennium.
I’m acutely conscious I now stand at an identical vantage level to the place Professor Slatyer stood 35 years in the past, surveying the advanced panorama earlier than us.
We collect at a second of profound consequence – not only for our sector, however for our nation’s future.
And for future generations, in whom we should instil hope and alternative.
Today I’d wish to share with you the strategic actuality for science and technology in an era of huge disruption.
The world is being reshaped earlier than our eyes.
We’re witnessing what has been referred to as the fourth industrial revolution: the technological revolution.
Near-daily advances in synthetic intelligence, quantum science, robotics, autonomous methods, area applied sciences, genomics…. the record goes on.
These will not be distant potentialities.
They are the forex of energy and prosperity proper now.
Change so speedy that legislators, regulators and analysts wrestle to maintain up.
At the identical time, the geopolitical panorama is more and more adversarial, fragmented, and contested.
The comfy assumptions of worldwide cooperation that formed our previous are being examined and – in many instances, shattered.
Multilateral establishments face unprecedented pressure.
National safety threats are now not restricted to elements that compromise our borders.
Rather, international interference, cyberattacks, threats to important infrastructure, and rampant disinformation create a posh intelligence surroundings.
A world the place R&D makes us safer and extra susceptible on the identical time. While geonomics and engineering biology make us more healthy, they develop the danger of biowarfare.
Scientists are requested to rethink the liberty of their collaborations.
We are in a world race for STEM expertise.
Major conflicts rage in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Sudan.
The relationship between main powers is outlined by competitors.
There is a world reconfiguration of our power methods, essential to decarbonise our economies, whereas not weakening them.
And here is what issues for all of us in this room: science and technology sit on the absolute centre of these modifications.
We are on the centre of these modifications.
Not on the periphery. Not as an afterthought. At the centre.
What we select for science at the moment, will form our future.
Last month’s important minerals settlement between the United States and Australia underscores this.
It wasn’t merely a commerce deal.
It was recognition that geopolitics now activates entry to the uncooked supplies of the technological revolution.
Key pillars of the US–Australia alliance embrace important minerals, new applied sciences, and technology switch for defence functions.
Similarly, the Prime Minister’s latest engagement with China targeted on agricultural innovation, metal decarbonisation, inexperienced iron, and renewable power technology – all questions of scientific and technological functionality.
These aren’t remoted examples.
They are illustrations of a brand new strategic actuality.
A actuality the place Australia’s alliances and subsequently our nationwide safety and prosperity are decided by our nation’s scientific and technological power.
It is subsequently a matter of strategic nationwide curiosity that we have now the strongest potential science and technology functionality we are able to probably muster.
What we select for science at the moment, will form our future.
The pathway shouldn’t be simple, however neither is it past the wit of our individuals.
There are regarding macrotrends.
The surroundings that scientists function in at the moment has turn out to be extra crowded and extra opaque than in the previous.
Today, the personal sector is a big and rising actor in the scientific and technological panorama.
The extraordinary development of a small quantity of huge world technology corporations means their financial power and worldwide affect now exceed these of many nation-states.
Let me put this in perspective.
In 2024, the National Science Foundation reported that because of important development in R&D funded by companies, the share of whole US R&D funded by the federal authorities decreased from 30% in 2011 to 19% in 2021.
This was earlier than the funding cuts carried out underneath the present administration.
In the US at the moment, the enterprise sector now funds 36% of fundamental analysis.
Not utilized analysis. Basic analysis.
That is sort of equal to the 40% share of basic research funded by the United States federal government.
There could also be some in Treasury and in the Department of Industry who could be happy to see that degree of personal funding in fundamental analysis.
To them I say: watch what you want for.
This presents a critical and important shift away from open science and away from public good analysis, and in the direction of analysis funded for personal use.
Basic analysis solely contributes to our collective basis of data if it is ready to be shared.
And shifts away from it being shared cut back the levers out there to authorities to form our future.
This is our actuality.
And it’s the motive why it’s a matter of strategic nationwide curiosity that we have now the strongest potential science and technology sector we are able to muster.
It can be one of the motivators for the Academy’s latest proposal to create an enduring supply of public funds to help fundamental analysis in the shape of a Research Fund that’s not dissimilar to the Medical Research Future Fund however for fundamental analysis throughout all disciplines.
Thereby leaving fundamental analysis funding for the general public good in authorities arms.
We suggest that the Research Fund be established via income earnt by the applying of a brief R&D levy on low-R&D-intensive companies that generate greater than $100 million {dollars} in annual income.
Nations throughout the globe have sought to strengthen their science and technology functionality.
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, in her Political guidelines for the next European Commission 2024–2029, requires analysis and innovation to be positioned on the coronary heart of their economic system.
Former Prime Minister of Italy, Enrico Letta, recommends that the EU add a fifth freedom to the original four freedoms that underpin the European Single Market.
To the present 4 – being free motion of items, providers, individuals and capital – he requires the free motion of analysis, innovation, data, and schooling.
Why? Because the primary 4 fall brief of what is required in at the moment’s world.
He identifies the necessity to help R&D public–personal partnerships, to align funding methods, to share analysis infrastructure and to pool knowledge in an open science method.
And what would this obtain?
He argues it’ll drive financial competitiveness and guarantee research-driven developments that profit society as a complete, not only a few.
So everybody – from entrepreneurs to established companies – can leverage the most recent analysis to develop transformative options.
It is deeply democratic and deeply visionary in troubled occasions.
Another former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as chair of the Wellcome Trust, recommends that the UK Government doubles down on its strengths in research and places its analysis asset into full use by:
- strategically utilizing it to help diplomacy and world affect
- being a regulatory innovator quite than an adopter – it isn’t solely about growing new applied sciences, however who units the principles for his or her use
- by recognising that well being safety is as paramount as defence safety and that analysis is central to each.
They argue that by flaunting the UK’s observe report in analysis excellence and worldwide collaboration, they’ll place the UK as the worldwide companion of selection for R&D.
In brief, they worth the worldwide alternate of individuals and concepts.
The Wellcome Trust argue and I quote:
“Investing in R&D will bring growth and prosperity in the UK. Combining investment in R&D with a new approach to how the United Kingdom partners with the world will improve its global standing, make it safer and help find its leadership role in a changing world.”
Science diplomacy is at its greatest once we fuse our scientific strengths with our diplomatic experience intentionally, and strategically.
When we recognise that worldwide science collaboration isn’t just about advancing data – it is about constructing affect, establishing norms, and creating alternatives that serve Australian pursuits.
In this space Australia has the important substances however has failed to show this right into a nationwide strategic functionality.
So, as different nations search to strengthen their science and technology functionality in response to a altering world, we have to ask whether or not Australia’s scientific and technological sector and belongings are robust, safe and strategic sufficient:
- to gas our economic system and productiveness
- to supply nationwide safety
- to strengthen our commerce negotiations
- to help our international coverage goals?
I don’t consider that is the case.
And I wrestle to think about how anybody may argue in any other case.
I can’t rehearse the present situations of our R&D sector at size.
You all know them:
Our quarries are deep and brimming.
The high quality of our science and scientists is outstanding.
R&D funding is now to this point behind the common OECD as a share of GDP invested in R&D, it will take an additional $33.4 billion dollars per annum just to get to parity.
We are wonderful worldwide collaborators.
Our STEM expertise pool is outstanding, however too small to satisfy our nationwide wants.
Thanks to an 18-month investigation by the Academy revealed in September, we all know we undergo shortages in knowledge scientists, geologists and materials scientists.
Our economic system is over-reliant on few industries and has the complexity of Botswana.
The profitable companies we do have are largely reluctant traders in new-to-market R&D.
And our industrial and manufacturing sector is having a big, albeit snail-paced, makeover.
Fragmentation prevents effectivity and scale.
And Australia has no overarching science and technology imaginative and prescient or technique.
Sadly, I can say with each confidence and despair, that science and technology is neither positioned nor valued because the nationwide strategic asset it’s on the coronary heart of our capacity to commerce, make offers, increase productiveness and navigate geopolitical complexity.
While nations throughout the globe search to strengthen their science and technology functionality in response to a altering world, Australia has not.
These are the explanations the Academy fought so lengthy and laborious for a complete root-and-branch evaluation of the R&D system.
To make the science and technology sector match for function in our quickly altering world.
And that’s the reason the Academy has taken daring steps to ascertain Australia’s Global Talent Attraction Program, recognising that we’re in a world race for STEM expertise, so pressing that it can’t await evaluations.
We can’t make good on our important minerals guarantees when the quantity of geologists we appeal to, practice and retain is in freefall.
Nor can we depend on importing expertise when the International Union of Geological Sciences says different nations are experiencing related declines.
We can’t absolutely undertake and exploit AI capabilities when just one in 4 12 months 12 college students is finding out maths.
What we select for science at the moment, will form our future.
The time to get critical about recasting Australia’s science and technology belongings was 35 years in the past, as Ralph Slatyer understood.
The subsequent greatest time is now.
Thankfully, I’m an optimist like Ralph Slatyer.
I consider we are able to get there – if we have now the braveness to behave.
We have a selection.
We have a option to place and prioritise science and technology.
We have an obligation to recognise that in an era of geopolitical, technological and environmental disruption – science and technology will not be luxurious investments.
When productiveness is declining, our analysis and innovation unlock industrial diversification and financial development.
We have a must vastly mature our method to science and technology.
We have an urgency to make the mandatory coverage and structural modifications and investments – even when they’re laborious. Especially when they’re laborious.
That is why a lot is driving on the outcomes of the Strategic Examination of Research and Development – often known as the SERD.
And why a lot is driving on the Government’s willingness and braveness to implement its suggestions… offered they’re smart!
The Academy will measure the SERD’s success by measuring the way it stacks up in opposition to the next ideas.
These are the ideas that underpin a future R&D system – the automobile – that shapes Australia’s future in an more and more advanced and contested world.
The SERD’s suggestions should replicate the next:
- Recognise that science, technological improvement, industrial competitiveness, societal challenges and innovation type a steady community and can’t be tackled in silos or be allowed to cannibalise one another.
- Double down on what works, apply focus and align sources and polices.
- Reduce program duplication and fragmentation.
- Fund and promote excellence in collaborative discovery analysis.
- Stimulate partnership between the general public and personal sectors domestically, internationally and throughout disciplines throughout the worth chain from discovery via to mass industrial use.
- Enable mobility of researchers domestically, internationally and throughout the worth chain.
- Accelerate and allow analysis and innovation through provision of capabilities and instruments like technology infrastructure. Key amongst them is high-performance computing and knowledge. And present for collaborative analysis infrastructure.
- Scale up funding by incentivising alignment and higher contribution of R&D funding from personal sources and public sources – together with from state and territory governments – in addition to philanthropy.
- Back discovery analysis and dangerous utilized analysis.
- Unleash the ability of authorities procurement.
- Attract, practice and retain STEM expertise, particularly the place gaps exist.
- Collaborate extensively and strengthen sovereign functionality by growing a risk-informed worldwide analysis collaboration method that recognises any nation or establishment could be a collaborator, a competitor or a rival at any given time. And typically on the identical time.
- Build nuanced and savvy science diplomacy functionality by strategically utilizing science and technology to help diplomacy and world affect, and by bettering our science intelligence community.
- Create situations that make the alternate of data, knowledge and applied sciences as open as potential and as closed as obligatory.
- Create situations and regulatory environments that help innovation, safety and security.
- Tend in the direction of a tradition that promotes educational freedom with duty.
- Build and deal with our linguistic and cultural competency as a sovereign functionality.
- Create mechanisms to attract on all data sources.
- And by no means, always remember the worth of the sacred contract been science and society.
I acknowledge that it’s a lengthy record. But for good motive.
This shouldn’t be a trivial train. But it’s an important one.
Technically, we have now a selection.
But truly, we have now no selection if we wish to prosper in an era of geopolitical, technological and environmental disruption.
Australia’s scientific and technological functionality should be robust, safe and strategic.
I consider we are able to get there – if we have now the braveness to behave.
We owe it to the subsequent era. To create hope and alternative.
It is commonly mentioned that to manipulate is to decide on.
What we select for science and technology at the moment, will form our future.
The second to behave is now.
Thank you for the chance to handle you.
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