Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Higher Education Support Amendment (Australia’s Economic Accelerator) Bill 2022 is the reintroduction of measures introduced by the former coalition government, which lapsed at the election and has now been taken up by Labor, so we do support this bill. A substantial piece of work led to a review of the government's significant investment in research because, although we do some of the finest research, it does not necessarily follow through to commercialisation to drive greater benefits for our economy. This will result in $296 million invested in 1,800 industry PhDs and over 800 fellows over a period of 10 years. For those researchers, this fuels their ideas, supporting Australia's cleverest research minds, and more broadly boosting productivity and creating jobs and new industries.

A key component of the coalition's $2.2 billion University Research Commercialisation Package was translation of research to application through reform across four key areas: placing national manufacturing priorities at the core of Australian government funded research; using priority driven schemes to ramp up commercialisation activity; delivering university research funding reform to strengthen incentives for genuine collaboration with industry; and investing in people who are skilled in university and industry collaboration.

Strategic and targeted investments included $243 million over five years for the Trailblazer Universities Program to boost prioritised R&D and drive commercialisation outcomes with industry partners with this research component aligned with our national manufacturing priorities in areas where Australia has significant comparative advantage and a strategic national interest. The areas at the time were medical products, food and beverage, recycling and clean energy, resources technology and critical minerals processing, defence industry and space.

This bill amends the Higher Education Support Act of 2003 to make the appropriate provisions to deliver this program and provide increased support to our universities to commercialise their world-leading research. As an undergraduate and postgraduate student and a lecturer at one of those universities, and having been on the council—the governing bodies—of two universities, I understand the importance of supporting the commercialisation of research in universities. This component of our package provides a 10-year investment for a competitive grant funding program to give the best chance of commercial realisation but with evaluation to support projects with the greatest likelihood of success. Its design was to get research through the known gates, the initial proof of concept, through to the valley of death, where there is the greatest risk of projects not proceeding, and through to commercial realisation. The commercialisation component, which is effectively the final stage, would be further supported through a $150 million commitment to CSIRO's main sequence venture.

The Australian Economic Accelerator program will work to attract projects with high commercialisation potential at the proof-of-concept or proof-of-scale level of commercial readiness. It establishes an innovative governance framework, including the new Australia's Economic Accelerator Advisory Board. It creates a new suite of Australian Research Council industry fellowships that will recognise and reward our academics who collaborate with industry. In development, there was extensive consultation and wider sector support. The group of eight universities supported it, Science and Technology Australia supported it, Universities Australia supported it, and the Business Council of Australia supported it.

In my own state of South Australia, associated with Flinders University—which has nearly 26,000 students and 998 higher degree research students—is the Factory of the Future, which is an industrial collaboration already underway with BAE Systems Maritime Australia, which is focused on innovation and industry technologies and research and training to advance manufacturing.

Additionally, South Australian Scientist of the Year, Professor Colin Raston, and the vortex fluidic device is transforming green chemistry. The high-tech yet simple device can be used in medical and pharmaceutical research, rapid COVID diagnostics, cancer treatments, food processing, materials processing, and much more across a myriad of industries, all with a focus on cleaner, greener and cheaper production. It is being commercialised right now. The Chalker lab has developed novel polymers made from waste products, which can clean oil spills, PFAS and arsenic contamination in gold mining and is now proceeding to commercialise the new material for global markets. At the University of Adelaide, with almost 24,000 students, 1,670 of those are postgraduate researchers.

Bygen Pty Ltd is the world's first producer of sustainable and tailored activated carbon. The global activated carbon market is currently valued at around $10 billion and is growing at almost 10 per cent per year. The uses for activated carbon are diverse and growing in number. Some of the most common markets include, but are not limited to, water purification, gold recovery, soil remediation, decaffeination, drink processing, PFAS removal, mercury removal and energy storage. Bygen recently announced that they have received planning approval for an activated carbon production facility in Swan Reach, on the Murray River, in South Australia. The concept to support our valued researchers underwent appropriate consultation with sectors. It will be good for university students, good for our researchers and inventors, good for our university sector and good for Australian industry.