On 10 September, Prof Tony Haymet delivered a speech for the 2025 annual conference of the Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences.
 

Good morning, welcome, and thank you, Michaela.

My that’s a hard act to follow. Two hard acts to follow - the wonderful artwork and the announcement of the beginning of negotiations with the European Commission - but I will do my best to make it interesting.  

I’m very pleased to be at this symposium and to see its strong focus on collaborative efforts to secure a more sustainable future.

As Chief Scientist, I echo the warm welcome to you all and especially those who’ve travelled from overseas.

Thank you to Minister Tim Ayres for your insightful remarks. And I’m glad to see today some former minsters for science, Ed Husic, and let me acknowledge the honourable Karen Andrews who I met in Canberra several times. She reminded me that many of the structures I find so helpful in my job today were invented during her time as Minister for Science.

I would also like to acknowledge the Ambassador from the EU who I see far too often in Canberra, usually at the best receptions. Yours on the 9th of May I have to admit was the best so far, and I’m keeping score.

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We do meet on Aboriginal land, and I acknowledge the warm welcome from Joseph and the thank you that Michaela gave on behalf of all of us to that welcome.

It’s great to be here and I’m looking forward to accompanying the minister over the next couple of months as he makes some really important announcements about Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal knowledge systems.

We were invited to think about the year 2075 and it is a very important year for me. I hadn’t prepared it for my speech but I was reminded by an earlier speech talking about rugby league and the NRL that the year 2075 will be the 106th year since my beloved Balmain Tigers won the NRL premiership and I am hoping I don’t have to wait until 2075 for that to happen again!

It was great to hear Margaret Thatcher’s name raised too, as many of you will know from the engineering community, Mrs Thatcher has a master’s degree in spectroscopy—a chemist—so she immediately knew the danger of climate change, as anyone who understands the vibrational spectrum of CO2 would do. Unfortunately, it’s not a requirement to be part of Australia’s parliament to have a degree in spectroscopy, more is the pity.

I commend this conference for exploring the profound contribution to science of First Nations knowledge systems.

In fact, elevating the knowledge systems of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is one of the Australian Government’s National Science and Research Priorities. And if you see it in diagrammatic form, it’s the one that sits in the heart of the other four.

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The people in this audience come from many parts of Australia and many countries. I’ve met quite a few people already that I have met in earlier parts of my life. Many of you are among the most highly accomplished in your fields. And all of you come from countries grappling with issues relating to sustainability.

So, it’s fitting that I’ve been asked to speak to you today about the role of international scientific collaboration in delivering a sustainable future.

And if I may I’d like to briefly reflect a bit on my journey. I want to tell you a story about stories. When I was a kid growing up in Sydney, in the then modest suburb of Lane Cove, the shelves of the Lane Cove library were full of romanticised stories celebrating the heroics of great scientific individuals. Figures whose singular vision … and seemingly solo efforts … led to great scientific breakthroughs.

But the library books of today present a much more balanced and accurate view. They reflect what my older self knows and what you also know: that nearly all innovation relies on collaboration.

Science and engineering are team sports. And more often than not, they’re global ones. In the face of complex international challenges, collaboration in science and engineering has never been more vital.

The problems we face are now too big and too complex for countries to go it alone – and we can’t solve them in silos.

Sea levels are rising. And we are dealing with more frequent and more intense bushfires, heatwaves, flooding and droughts. I used to say that just about Australia, but now I look to Europe and see exactly the same problems happening.  

Stabilising the climate will limit sea level increases and reduce the likelihood of extreme weather. This helps to safeguard the health and wellbeing of people, eco-systems and economies. So, it’s crucial – for our planet, its people, and our grandchildren that we stabilise the climate.

And you too are crucial, as people, as engineers, as scientists.

We are switching from an energy system that is high in CO2 emissions to one that is cleaner and fundamentally more sustainable.

We are de-carbonising our economy by finding new ways to create energy. To store energy. And to deliver that energy to people who need it.

Scientific and tech breakthroughs over the next decade will be essential – for:

•    decarbonising our economies
•    boosting sovereign capability
•    protecting the environment 
•    and increasing our productivity and prosperity.

To achieve those goals, international scientific and engineering partnerships will be more important than ever before.

Fortunately, collaboration is part of our scientific DNA in Australia.

In fact, our Academy of Science reckons that the last major Australian invention that did not involve some international input … was the stump-jump plough .

If you’ve never heard of that before, it’s an Aussie icon, please look it up with Mr Google.

And that was invented, I’m told, in 1876, just when I was starting my career.

Throughout my career, I’ve often collaborated with overseas individuals and organisations. And I’ve spent some years of my professional life happily overseas.

Australians are also good collaborators when it comes to translating scientific discoveries into game-changing, real-world innovations, and I hope you don’t mind if I mention a few:

•    Wi-Fi 
•    the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil 
•    the ‘black box’ flight recorder (it’s actually orange)
•    and the Cochlear hearing implant, to name just a few.

Despite having just one-third-of-a-percent of the global population, we punch well above our weight when it comes to producing the world's most cited research papers. This places us among the top five nations in the world. However, that paper success, that publication success is not sufficiently mirrored when it comes to consistently translating research into commercial outcomes within our borders.

Australians must turn more of that world-class research into 
world-leading industries, products and services.  And to do that onshore, we must often cooperate with those who are offshore. That helps us to pool our knowledge, share resources, and scale-up our discoveries. We understand if we produce 5 percent of research, that means there is 95 percent we are importing from other countries.

The cross-pollination of ideas across continents is vital to science, research and engineering.

Early in my career, I lived and worked abroad, collaborating with teams in different countries and tapping into new ways of thinking. That experience shaped my path and fuelled my progress.

Such scientific mobility fosters enduring collaborations that span decades and continents.

That’s why supporting scientific mobility matters so much. We need to help more researchers gain international experience. And we need to get them mobile early—just as I did—so they’re ready to contribute to the global challenges ahead.

I’m glad the minister mentioned so clearly that high numbers of our top scientists and engineers were born overseas, many of you here today. Thank you.

This cultural diversity strengthens our domestic workforce - and our global connections. But for Australia to achieve its ambitions regarding sustainability and prosperity it needs a scientific workforce that continues to be fit for purpose.

We must take care to avoid potential skills shortages in many areas of strategically important science and technology. Our science system requires continued access to resilient pipelines of diverse scientific talent—from Australia and abroad.

So a few things we must continue to do:

At school, we must consistently encourage young people to pursue STEM subjects.

At university, we must bolster the numbers of domestic PhD graduates.

And in the workforce, we must continue to provide greater job certainty for researchers – because job insecurity remains a major barrier for careers in science.

Great science and engineering doesn’t just need great people and good job security. It requires great equipment, too.

And that must include world-leading research infrastructure.

Now, in Australia we have realised when it comes to research infrastructure, we can't have one of everything. We got used to, long ago, sending our scientists to CERN to smash particles into each other - but we need access to a lot of different facilities. Some of them in Australia, some of them overseas, many of them in the future built with partners.

And just as an example of global infrastructure that is in Australia: the Square Kilometre Array, or S-K-A! I remember this project from when I joined the CSIRO in 1876, no in 2002, and it was an amazing project, collaborating across the world, bringing partners together to build an amazing telescope.

That telescope is beginning to operate. It’s partly in Western Australia and partly in South Africa. It’s incredibly expensive but it’s a great example of international collaboration with facilities in Australia, South Africa and the UK.  

So, let me finish with a few key takeaways.

We’re in the middle of a digital revolution – unlocking extraordinary capabilities at a time of extraordinary global challenges and change.

Across Australia and many other nations, there’s a rare alignment: of technology, ambition, and shared goals, especially around climate change.

These challenges – regarding climate, as well as health and sustainability – are global. So too must the solutions to them be: global.

That’s why international partnerships matter. Why shared infrastructure and researcher mobility are essential.
And why your discussions here are so important.

However, collaboration must not end at conference doors. I urge you to take what you learn here and turn it into action – in your labs and offices, your institutions, and your policy networks. 

As Chief Scientist, I’m committed to fostering international collaboration in science and research. And I want to finish with my favourite quote that unfortunately some of you have heard before, and it’s from Louis Pasteur – which I read as a child at the local library I mentioned earlier:

‘Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.’

Thank you.

(ends)