This is the transcript of a speech by Professor Ian Chubb AC, Chair of the advisory panel for the report Australian Science, Australia's Future: Science 2035. It was delivered on 4 September 2025 at a national symposium hosted by the Australian Academy of Science.
Check against delivery.
My role this morning is to make a brief introduction, remind you of some of what Jagadish said, and of the value of Australian expertise that needs breadth and depth to give us national capacity to respond to the predictable, and to the unpredictable, as the needs arise.
Then, Hayley will take you through the work that she has led within the Secretariat - and we will respond to questions and comments that may, or will, arise.
By way of introduction, I will use just two of many possible examples to illustrate the importance of national capacity. And how Australia's response to the two was based on expertise, and the result of long-term investment.
So, to start.
By early in 2024 Australia had managed its way through several waves of Covid infections.
Imported vaccines had been put into arms from early 2021 - and we learned about strength, weakness, determination and courage through a pretty traumatic period.
And we learnt about the value of expertise; of having experts available to strategise and to plan with both the capacity and courage to reassure a concerned public that what they faced could be difficult, could be discomforting, could be disconcerting, or traumatising, but that we could manage a way forward to minimise harm in the face of uncertainty.
When we needed them, we had them. Experts able to advise political leaders as we faced a pandemic of unknown but scary possibilities; experts able to advise on how to reduce if never eliminate risks to Australians.
It was advice that was robust enough to stand against the new ways of throwing doubt on everything - what we call mis- and dis-information, or just lying. It was expertise and it led to evidence-based public health options used by government and the community in partnership.
I was reminded then of how we'd done it before. How Australia's decades of investment in virology and microbiology and medical research more generally led Australia to develop a world-leading HIV/AIDS strategy that was strong, bipartisan and effective. I was also reminded of courage and determination: the federal Minister of the day even had the resolve to 'launder' money through a convent to get support into a jurisdiction that treated HIV/AIDs as a moral issue rather than a public-health crisis.
But a key message in our Australian story is how we patiently invested in talent and built expertise, and how it was able to be mobilised when we needed it - because it was there.
Nobody in Australia was particularly focused on HIV/AIDS until it was first reported in Australia in the early 1980s. Australians first grew the Covid-19 virus just ten days after the first Australian came home with the infection. I'd be pretty sure they didn't grow up thinking that one day there might be something called the SARS-CoV2 virus and that they could be the first in the world to grow it and make it available to researchers world-wide. They used their decades of training to produce what was described as a 'game changer' for the international scientific community.
Building expertise, creating knowledge, growing understanding, and being citizens in a world of knowledge were seen as laudable in their own right - and Australian experts in a range of fields have been there when we needed them.
About 18 months ago, several of us in the Academy were reflecting on how, at different stages of our history, Australia had built capacity over time - a time when the use of so-called patient capital was seen as an investment in the purposeful building of talent and knowledge, not a cost. But after 2008, the picture changed.
While never arguing that we do not need to apply knowledge to find solutions to problems that Australians - or the world - face, we asked whether we still invest in expertise that will give us the capacity should or when we need it. That same expertise is our entry to the global bank of knowledge where we are 3% depositors but where we get to learn from others and influence the big decisions with worldwide significance.
When we decided on Australian Science, Australia's Future, the Academy did not want to add yet another glossy report full of slogans and good intentions. Or, less generously, add yet another way to gather dust on shelves, prop open doors or take up space on laptops.
We wanted to use the available data to prepare the most comprehensive analysis of Australia's present science capability that we could.
We aimed to answer an apparently simple question: does the science we have match the science we need? Or might need.
But how to link the science to what the nation aims to be?
As the President reminded us earlier, the federal Treasurer has commented that we have an obligation to future generations to deliver a better standard of living than we enjoy today.
To look for inspiration, we turned to the Intergenerational Report produced by the Commonwealth Government in 2023.
That report sets out the five pressures Australia will face in the coming decades. They include an ageing population and its care, the economic and physical risks of climate change, and digital transformation all in the uncertainties of a shifting geopolitical landscape.
So we refined our question. We asked: what science capability would Australia need to meet those challenges, and build an economy that supports a better future for all Australians?
We set out to complete the most comprehensive analysis of Australia's science system undertaken to date - not just to count what we have, but to test whether it is fit for purpose.
We asked: if Australia is to lift its investment in R&D, where should that investment be directed? What capability do we need to strengthen, and what capability do we need to build almost from scratch?
But it was never just an accounting exercise. Science is not separate from daily life, even if it can sometimes feel abstract or distant. It shapes the quality of the food we eat, the security of the jobs we hold, the safety of the medicines we take, and the reliability of the technologies we use.
The challenge is that much of it is invisible to the public - until it is not there when we need it.
Science is not a cost. It is an investment in the future. Other nations already understand this. They invest not because they've got some spare cash they don't want to leave just lying around, but they make choices and sacrifices because they can't afford not to.
If we continue to sit back and coast, waiting to import solutions or even research, if we continue to talk but not act, then we will fall further behind and import nearly all of what we need including even our own resources transformed into high-value goods at high cost.
The choice is clear. We can treat science as an optional extra, or we can treat it as the foundation for our future. We can repeat the rhetoric about being clever and innovative without backing it with substance, or we can commit to building the system that will let us be both. We can let economics cap our vision before we've even got one - or we can shape the economy to get us to where we want to be.
It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes persistence and courage. But to get to the end, you have to start.
I'll hand over to Hayley who will take us to the starting line and beyond.
