9 March 2009
University of Wollongong
Wollongong, New South Wales
[check against delivery]
It’s a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon and to be celebrating an exciting new phase in the University of Wollongong’s development.
The Australian Institute for Innovative Materials addresses one of the critical challenges facing us today – the challenge of building sustainable growth in a rapidly changing world.
Over 200 researchers and students will be gathered under this roof.
They will be working many fields, including materials science, chemistry, biology, physics and engineering.
The institute’s mission is to carry out world-class research into advanced technologies, developing real-world applications with the potential to benefit the economy and society at large.
It will house two flagship research groups:
- the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, led by Professor Wallace, and
- the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, led by Professor Dou.
It will dovetail perfectly with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, which is also headquartered in this building.
The University of Wollongong also co-hosts the Materials Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, which supports the production of nano materials and the fabrication of high-tech films and devices.
Put all these things together and you get a very serious concentration of expertise and resources in an area of research that will help define the twenty-first century.
As I said in Sydney this morning, we expect all Australian universities to be doing internationally significant research – whether they be young or old, metropolitan or regional.
The University of Wollongong is meeting that expectation.
Collaboration
The high-profile collaborations it has established with institutions around Australia and around the world are one measure of its success.
The university’s research partners include the University of Cambridge, Ohio State University, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.
Innovation is no longer the province of the lone inventor.
It no longer occurs within single institutions or disciplines.
Innovation is open and pervasive.
Our success as innovators depends on our ability to make connections.
It is especially important that we bridge the cultural divide between universities and industry.
All Australian universities can point to productive relationships with individual firms, and the University of Wollongong is no exception.
But there is no getting around the fact that fewer than 1 per cent of Australian businesses get information and ideas for innovation from universities. (ABS 8158.0)
It is time we reached out to the other 99 per cent.
The University of Wollongong is off to a great start.
It is active in several Cooperative Research Centres, including the CRCs for Rail Innovation, Smart Services, Polymers and Desert Knowledge.
And of course it is developing this unique Innovation Campus, which will match the research capabilities of the university and its specialist institutes to the research needs of industry.
Innovation
The Australian Institute for Innovative Materials teaches us a lot about how innovation should work.
It is a reminder that ambitious goals beget major achievements.
It is a reminder that complex problems require multidisciplinary solutions.
It is a reminder that while we must go on creating new knowledge, it is equally important that we apply our knowledge to solve the many problems that confront us – whether they be social, economic, or environmental.
It’s especially important in these difficult times that we apply our knowledge to drive economic growth, job creation, productivity improvement, new business formation, and the regeneration of existing industries.
The future
This Government came into office determined to rebuild Australia’s research and innovation capacity after years of neglect.
First, we moved quickly to give our universities a much-needed shot in the arm – creating new research fellowships, offering more postgraduate awards, increasing support for international collaboration, and investing an extra $1.58 billion in capital works last year.
The University of Wollongong received $9.7 million in May and $10.1 million in December to revitalise teaching and learning facilities.
It received another $35 million from the Education Investment Fund for its SMART Infrastructure Facility, which will transform the way infrastructure-related disciplines are researched and taught.
This was a great result against some very strong competition.
The second thing we are doing is laying out a long-term agenda for renewal and reform.
That process began with our innovation and higher education reviews.
This is a good opportunity to thank the University of Wollongong for its thoughtful submissions to both reviews.
The process has continued over the past few days, as Julia Gillard and I have outlined some of the new policy directions that have emerged from the government’s consideration of the reviews.
We are developing a more detailed response as part of the budget process.
In the meantime, as I announced earlier today, the Government has recognised the need:
- to progressively address the gap in funding for indirect research costs – in return for greater accountability,
- to ensure that postgraduate stipends enable students to maintain a reasonable standard of living,
- to draw up a research workforce strategy for the period to 2020,
- to double the level of collaboration between public researchers and industry, and
- to increase the proportion of businesses that innovate by at least 25 per cent.
We are heading into a very tough budget, and there will be limited scope to fund new initiatives in the short term.
Nevertheless, it is important to be clear about where we are heading.
We can’t afford to stop thinking about the future.
That’s what the Government is doing, and that’s what the University of Wollongong is doing.
The Australian Institute of Innovative Materials is proof of that, and it is a pleasure to declare it open.