August 08, 2025
This is the transcript of a speech by the President of the Australian Academy of Science President, Professor Chennupati Jagadish AC PresAA FRS FREng FTSE, delivered on 8 August 2025 on the KTSI Conference in Indonesia.
Selamat pagi.
Let me start by sincerely thanking the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Brian Yuliarto, for the type invitation to this occasion.
I’d additionally prefer to acknowledge the great group at MoHEST for his or her heat hospitality all through my go to.
My thanks should additionally go to the Director General, Professor Ahmed Najib Burhani, and the Director for the Dissemination and Utilisation of Science and Technology, Professor Yudi Darma, for coordinating my go to and our longstanding collaboration.
It is a nice pleasure to be right here in Indonesia to mark National Science and Technology Day – a celebration of innovation, ambition, and shared progress.
Tomorrow Australia will even start our personal annual celebration of science and know-how, National Science Week.
Demonstrating how each Australian, and certainly each international citizen, advantages from science and know-how is one thing the Australian Academy of Science is concentrated on not simply throughout National Science Week, however daily of the yr.
Our mission is to advance Australia as a nation that embraces scientific data and whose individuals take pleasure in the advantages of science.
The Indonesian Academy of Sciences can also be centered on speaking the advantages of science, together with medication and engineering.
Reflections on current go to
This is my first time in Bandung. Last week I used to be in Jakarta. I wasn’t anticipating to return so quickly, but it surely’s nice to be right here!
For me personally that is a signal of our deepening partnership and a possibility to benefit from the Indonesian hospitality!
Colleagues from the Australian Academy of Science, the Regional Focal Point for Asia and the Pacific of the International Science Council, and the Australian Council of Deans of Science joined me final week in Jakarta.
Every member of the delegation would have cherished to return with me at the moment, such was the heat of the welcome and the power of the connections made.
While in Jakarta, I had the privilege of becoming a member of a scientific discussion board hosted by the Ministry, the place we explored the position of science in addressing nationwide and regional priorities.
It was fascinating to be taught from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology’s strategy. And to witness how deeply the Ministry is considering integrating analysis, know-how, and schooling into Indonesia’s growth – each by way of strategic planning and tangible funding.
The Minister and I additionally mentioned Indonesia’s potential position throughout the International Science Council.
Given the nation’s management within the area and its rising capability in science, analysis, and innovation, Indonesia’s voice can be a very important and revered addition to the worldwide scientific neighborhood.
I used to be particularly happy to listen to that Minister Brian Yuliarto needs to champion this essential step – one that will mirror Indonesia’s dedication to shaping science on the world stage.
Last week I additionally visited a few of the wonderful organisations that make up your nation’s vibrant science and know-how ecosystem.
At the Indonesian Academy of Sciences, I used to be struck by the Academy’s sturdy dedication to scientific integrity, and its efforts to attach Indonesian researchers with international networks.
Having a Scientific Academy offering unbiased, evidence-informed recommendation is a vital function of any thriving science system.
Last week Chair of the Academy, Dr Daniel Murdiyarso, spoke about Indonesia’s scientific ambitions, alongside advisors on the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology.
That stage of alignment between authorities and the scientific neighborhood is just not all the time straightforward to realize, and it speaks very extremely of the Ministry’s imaginative and prescient and Indonesia’s dedication to long-term, knowledge-based policymaking.
Our assembly with the Chairman of the National Research and Innovation Agency, Laksana Tri Handoko, additionally offered a precious window into Indonesia’s ambition to streamline and energise your nationwide analysis system.
The company’s built-in mannequin is a daring endeavor – bringing collectively funding, analysis, and innovation below one umbrella to speed up nationwide priorities and construct worldwide competitiveness.
Meeting younger scientists
My delegation was additionally very honored to satisfy a few of Indonesia’s younger scientists on the Indonesian Young Academy.
The subsequent technology is just not solely the way forward for science however the way forward for society.
The Indonesian Young Academy is enjoying an more and more influential position in fostering rising analysis management and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Its power, ambition, and dedication to public engagement are precisely what is required to construct a dynamic and future-focused scientific tradition.
We are significantly grateful that the co-Chair of the Indonesian Young Academy serves on the Advisory Council of the Regional Focal Point for Asia and the Pacific of the International Science Council.
This is only one of many examples of the sturdy connection and collaboration between Australia and Indonesian analysis communities.
I additionally met with a group of excellent Indonesian alumni of Australian universities. What a deal with that was! Their expertise, creativity and management had been deeply spectacular.
Many are already making essential contributions throughout science, coverage, and innovation – and it’s clear they may play a central position in shaping Indonesia’s analysis and know-how future.
But they’re doing a lot greater than that – they’re weaving a tradition of collaboration between Indonesia and Australia deep into the material of how we work.
The ties between our establishments are sturdy, however it’s these private and skilled relationships that actually carry the partnership ahead.
These conversations – from ministries to academies, businesses to alumni – saved circling again to a widespread theme, the main focus of our dialogue at the moment: How can we construct a strong, responsive, and interconnected ecosystem that hyperlinks analysis, science, know-how, and trade?
That is the query I need to discover with you at the moment.
A method and priorities
The first and arguably most essential component of wholesome analysis, science, know-how and trade ecosystem is technique.
In the center of final yr the Australian Government printed a new nationwide science assertion for the nation, supported by 5 new nationwide science and analysis priorities.
They are:
- transitioning to a web zero future
- supporting wholesome and thriving communities
- elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders data techniques
- defending and restoring Australia’s surroundings, and
- constructing a safe and resilient nation.
Six months later the Australian Government introduced they’d begin a strategic examination of Australia’s analysis and growth system.
This evaluate was warmly welcomed by the Academy and one thing we have been calling for since 2018. Why?
Because the advanced net of insurance policies, funding devices, establishments and incentives at present in place aren’t serving Australia’s nationwide curiosity.
The Academy is supporting this nationwide analysis and growth evaluate with one of the vital formidable coverage efforts within the Academy’s 71-year historical past.
Over the previous 18 months the Academy has systematically examined the potential of Australia’s science functionality in opposition to our future wants, consulting fifty Academy Fellows and different main consultants alongside the way in which.
The Academy will launch a 10-year plan for a way science will help our nationwide ambitions on 4 September at a symposium in Canberra.
This occasion can be reside streamed, and you might be all most welcome to affix us in individual or on-line.
Findings from the Government’s strategic examination of Australia’s analysis and growth system will should be rigorously applied and evaluated to make sure its success.
A related strategy
The second component of a wholesome ecosystem is a related, coordinated strategy from analysis to innovation.
There is commonly stress between the tempo of discovery, which is a long-term endeavour, and the necessity to speed up the switch of recent data into merchandise, providers and proof for decision-making.
Many organisations additionally function in useful resource constrained environments, so methods to streamline effort and keep away from duplication are essential.
This problem is a part of what the Australian Government’s Strategic Examination of analysis and growth will tackle.
The Academy has really helpful a new nationwide mannequin for Australia’s analysis and growth system.
It attracts inspiration from Horizon Europe’s partnerships mannequin to coordinate nationwide funding in Australia by way of a unified nationwide system that utilises co-investment partnerships in areas of nationwide significance.
The new mannequin would create coordination throughout Australia’s totally different ranges of presidency, align priorities and optimise allocation of sources for analysis.
It would additionally join Australia’s numerous analysis businesses and funding our bodies in a collaborative discussion board. The objective of this discussion board can be to offer strategic recommendation on R&D coverage and planning and logically sequence funding to create continuity between discovery and software.
Adequate infrastructure
A analysis, science and know-how ecosystem can not thrive with out satisfactory infrastructure, which is vitally essential for discovery and analysis productiveness and more and more essential to be used by trade.
There are 4 tiers of analysis infrastructure in Australia which serve totally different customers and functions.
- Very Large Research Infrastructure which encompasses massive, internationally funded infrastructure such because the Square Kilometre Array.
- National Agency Infrastructure which is housed inside and totally funded by way of Government businesses and obtainable for public and personal use.
- National Collaborative Infrastructure is nationally important to the analysis neighborhood, authorities, and the personal sector that operates on a person pays foundation.
- Institutional Research Infrastructure is university-level infrastructure, funded by way of Australian Research Council grants and college funds.
Supercomputing and synthetic intelligence are disrupting and remodeling scientific analysis worldwide by augmenting science capabilities and accelerating discovery.
This presents new calls for for infrastructure to satisfy the wants of researchers and trade and to organize for future technological developments.
Supercomputers are essential fashionable infrastructure important to the event and use of synthetic intelligence and quantum computing. The functionality is a essential challenge not just for science in Australia, but additionally within the Asia-Pacific area extra broadly.
Skills and expertise
I discussed earlier the Academy’s quickly to be launched 10-year plan for a way science will help Australia’s nationwide ambitions.
One of the important thing findings that has come out of our work inspecting our future science functionality is that we aren’t coaching sufficient home college students in synthetic intelligence. That has implications for constructing our personal sovereign functionality.
Australia is just not the one nation grappling with the challenges of making ready for a future the place STEM expertise can be essential.
I used to be happy to learn concerning the recent launch of an Indonesian initiative to boost the literacy and expertise of Indonesian youth in STEM and AI.
STEM literacy is on the coronary heart of just about every thing we do and how we advance as a nation and a globe, from fixing main issues to creating new companies and jobs we haven’t but imagined.
A wholesome science and know-how ecosystem requires funding within the those that generate concepts and create breakthroughs.
This entails securing a pipeline of expertise:
- from college students finding out science and arithmetic in school and college, to well-funded PhD positions
- to early- and mid-career researchers advancing data, to senior researchers who mentor the following technology.
Nurturing this pipeline requires us to:
- practice the consultants we’d like
- appeal to home and worldwide expertise, and
- retain researchers by guaranteeing they’re supported to progress their careers and have constructive office environments.
Funding
A wholesome science and analysis ecosystem options funding constructions that perceive the position of governments to offer long run funding and tackle better threat by supporting primary analysis that doesn’t ship an instantaneous software or financial return.
Industry should additionally put money into analysis, however this funding is extra prone to come later within the course of to translate or commercialise analysis with a particular software.
Governments additionally create coverage settings that incentivise companies to put money into R&D, because of the move on results of this funding to financial development and productiveness.
In this fashion, each authorities and trade play essential roles by supporting totally different elements of the ecosystem to ship influence from science and know-how analysis.
One of the challenges Australia faces is declining funding in analysis by authorities and enterprise. This is impacting Australia’s productiveness and one thing the Australian Government is attempting to handle.
Last month the Academy put ahead a proposal to incentivise better enterprise funding. The proposal would see the appliance of a analysis and growth levy on companies with annual income of $100 million or extra.
The levy can be discounted for companies who already make investments closely in analysis and growth.
The funds collected can be invested straight into analysis by way of a long-term sustainable, interest-generating fund – rising the pool of funds obtainable for funding in analysis and innovation.
We are working exhausting to steer our authorities to contemplate such a measure.
International collaboration
International collaborations are very important to a wholesome science and analysis ecosystem.
International collaborations:
- underpin data sharing
- facilitate entry to international analysis infrastructure and networks of proficient researchers
- guarantee choices are made based mostly on the perfect obtainable scientific proof, and
- enable the pursuit of ‘big science’ initiatives that no single nation can obtain alone.
Think concerning the sequencing the human genome or the detection of gravitational waves. It was solely by way of worldwide collaboration that these transformational analysis breakthroughs occurred.
In our more and more advanced and unpredictable world, any nation or establishment could be a collaborator or competitor at any given time or in several areas.
This signifies that we should associate strategically, on shared targets for our area.
A wholesome science and know-how ecosystem should have various collaborations to handle threat and be capable to stability competitors and collaboration.
Seeds of Science
Continuing on the theme of worldwide collaboration, I’d now like to speak about a new initiative known as Seeds of Science Asia, which comes below the umbrella of the International Science Council’s Regional Focal Point for Asia-Pacific, which we host on the Australian Academy of Science.
This program provides grants that are designed to strengthen the science-policy interface throughout the area. This is essential for guaranteeing that the analysis we do informs the choices that form our societies and our future.
The purpose of Seeds of Science Asia is straightforward however highly effective: to help evidence-informed, adaptive, and forward-looking governance all through our area.
By constructing researchers’ capability to interact with coverage processes, and likewise, by constructing policymakers’ capability to interact with scientists, we are able to be certain the perfect obtainable analysis is used to handle the advanced challenges our societies face.
This is a small however important step in the direction of constructing a future the place science and coverage work collectively for the good thing about all.
There is at present a name for proposals open below Seeds of Science Asia, and I strongly encourage you and your colleagues to contemplate making use of or sharing it inside your networks. You can discover out extra about this on the Academy web site and social media or by looking for: “Seeds of Science Asia.”
The Academy can also be happy to be supporting the Asia Science Mission for Sustainability.
This initiative brings collectively present networks of researchers, policymakers and stakeholders to pilot initiatives that progress the Sustainable Development Goals in Asia. By harnessing the ability of native science communities embedded inside universities, faculties, and civil society organisations, we hope progress could be made with the SGDs.
Initiatives like these lay the foundations for stronger, extra resilient, and extra simply societies inside our area by guaranteeing that science is just not solely wonderful, but additionally deeply related to the choices that form our world.
The Australian Academy of Science is one in every of 5 realized academies in Australia, and a member of the Australian Council of Learned Academies, or ACOLA.
This discussion board contributes skilled recommendation to tell nationwide coverage and to develop progressive options to advanced international issues and rising nationwide wants.
And to conclude my presentation at the moment, I’d prefer to share with you some insights from a new paper produced by ACOLA for the Knowledge Partnership Platform between Australia and Indonesia, also called KONEKSI.
Contributors to the paper highlighted the challenges of connecting analysis outputs to measurable financial development.
This is because of a number of interrelated elements.
Firstly, the time lag between analysis funding and financial influence is important. Benefits from analysis typically take 5 to 10 years to materialise, making it tough to attribute particular financial outcomes to particular person analysis actions.
This delay complicates coverage analysis and funding choices, particularly in environments pushed by short-term outcomes.
Additionally, many analysis outputs – corresponding to tutorial publications or early-stage prototypes – don’t instantly translate into industrial services or products, additional obscuring their financial worth.
Secondly, fragmentation in knowledge assortment and analysis frameworks hinders complete evaluation.
In Australia, a number of businesses observe totally different elements of analysis efficiency, however there isn’t a unified system that hyperlinks outputs, for instance, patents and publications, to broader financial indicators like gross home product development or productiveness.
Metrics typically rely closely on Return on Investment, which could be deceptive and fail to seize long-term or oblique advantages corresponding to improved public well being, environmental sustainability, or workforce growth.
Experts advocate for extra holistic and longitudinal approaches, together with ecosystem-level indicators like collaboration density, expertise mobility, and translational capability, to higher perceive the total influence of analysis on financial development.
The report outlined six snapshots of relevance for Indonesia, together with:
- Investing in RDI drives long-term financial development and Indonesia might take into account better funding into analysis consistent with its GDP development and consistent with OECD indicators, to satisfy its advanced-economy development targets.
- Clear terminology and frameworks are important to make sure focused help throughout the innovation pipeline.
- Metrics should transcend ROI and embody broader, long-term indicators to higher seize the total influence of analysis and information strategic funding corresponding to: Human capital growth, collaboration density, societal and environmental outcomes and regional resilience.
- Regional and place-based innovation issues, as native strengths could be leveraged to construct built-in innovation ecosystems, cut back structural drawback and optimise aggressive benefit.
- Collaborative fashions and partnerships that hyperlink universities, trade, and authorities can strengthen innovation capability and societal resilience.
- Funding variety and long-term help are essential to bridge the “valley of death” between analysis and commercialisation in alignment with key authorities priorities.
That brings my presentation to a shut.
Thank you all to your consideration at the moment.
I do hope to return to Indonesia once more quickly.
Science is the common language and endeavour that unites us.
I stay up for deepening the collaboration and partnership between our two nice international locations.
Terima kasih.