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The Australian Government has published the report of the independent examination of Australia’s research, development and innovation (RD&I) system.
The UNSW SMaRT Centre made a detailed submission as part of the consultation, and welcomes the report's 20 recommendations, intended to improve the capacity of Australia’s RD&I system to support the economy and create a more prosperous, healthier, safer and equitable Australia.
The recommendations of the report focus on 6 elements:
- greater focus and scale for RD&I impact
- a world class foundational research system creating knowledge and expertise
- incentives to build the RD&I businesses and industries of the future
- investment and capital to fuel the innovation cycle
- building workforce capability to power RD&I activities
- government to lead and champion.
The Government is expected to respond to the recommendations from the report it commissioned.
Summary of SMaRT submission
Primary response
In our area of expertise, R&D is at the forefront of what of we do: researching and developing technologies that use waste as “new age resources and feedstock” for advanced manufacturing. We do this in conjunction with various industry, government and non- government partners, however the R&D system as a whole is fragmented and creates barriers rather than incentives for our various industry and potential commercial partners.
The UNSW SMaRT Centre recognises that Australia lags behind other countries in translating the excellent research in our universities into new industries which create new jobs and provide economic benefit to Australia.
Evidence from around the world shows that success in translation and commercialisation of research requires major long-term investment, both public and private. To address this issue, the UNSW SMaRT Centre supports that the Australian Government provide funding and incentives for greater university-industry-government collaboration to support commercialisation by:
- Establishing an Australia Research Translation Fund;
- Establishing Translational Research Partnerships.
Barriers to collaboration and commercialisation
There is a range of high-level barriers which prevent Australia from building on university expertise to drive economic activity, including:
- A collective failure to understand or celebrate the national asset that exists in our university research
- University research funding is heavily reliant on student revenue
To address these issues, we need a wholesale change in culture and mindset to recognise the importance of research and translation as a return-generating investment. A London Economics report commissioned by the Group of Eight found that for every $1 invested in research, around $10 came back in socio-economic benefits. We need to recognise that R&D expenditure is an income generating investment in jobs and potentially powerful new industries.
Carefully planned funding schemes are needed, designed to address and overcome the current impediments to university-industry collaboration.
Example
R&D is essential if we want to strive to develop a circular economy – or many localised circular economies – in which we keep materials in use for as long as possible via decentralised new green remanufacturing technologies and use these recovered materials to establish new business supply chains. Using “waste as a resource” to build the components and infrastructure needed to electrify our communities is really the only effective safe and sustainable solution for green metals opportunities for Australia. Such an approach would help to create new jobs, along with other economic, social and environmental benefits.
Some emerging technologies and capabilities are available to reform much of the valuable materials contained in many of the “hard to recycle” waste types not subject to traditional waste and recycling processes, such as electronic waste (e-waste), and battery and PV wastes, as well as recovering metals and polymers from millions of tyres, mattresses, appliances and auto waste, into new products and manufacturing feedstock needed to create a truly viable, long terms and sustainable clean energy industry.
But what is missing is the practical, implementation stage for R&D for industrial application, so that existing university-developed technologies can be industrialised and scaled. By successfully piloting and implementing such technologies means local SMEs using these emerging capabilities can become part of new supply chains and help develop ‘green manufacturing’ capability by adopting solutions like those developed by the UNSW SMaRT
Centre, such as our decentralised MICROfactorieTM Technology solutions for creating value from waste, especially at sites where wastes are located.
This approach would drive local and regional solutions for hi-tech waste recycling and manufacturing, especially in capturing metals and other essential materials from waste, reforming them into high value materials to help obviate the need for mining, transportation and processing of natural resources which collectively create negative environmental, economic and social impacts.
Manufacturing of renewal energy technologies – and the significant amount of infrastructure and related components required to bring them online, operationalise and maintain them – are currently dependent almost entirely on finite natural resources that need to me mined, transported and processed. This environmental impact can be both mitigated and reduced by using waste materials as the manufacturing feedstock needed to build these technologies and related infrastructure and components. Greater R&D support would enable a much quicker uptake of these technologies to help Australia capitalise on our research strengths and subsequent, significant benefits.