In an age where intellectual property is becoming more important than physical property, Australia needs to play to its national strengths, says CSIRO Chairman Mr Charles Allen.

In the 1997 Brodie Hall Address in Perth (W.A.), Mr Allen says that the nation needs to adopt the principles of prudent investment in its approach to shaping its national scientific portfolio.

"We need a balanced approach, covering a spectrum of market-pull and science-push," he says.

"We need patience, allowing for the long lead-times inherent in scientific research.

"And we need to play to our strengths, drawing together those areas where we have both scientific strengths and the industry to exploit them."

Science has an almost unmatched power to create wealth, Mr Allen says. In forming judgements about where Australia should focus its efforts, the likelihood of scientific progress in a particular field should combine with the nation's ability to capture it.

"Our natural strengths in agriculture and mining are well recognised and CSIRO invests heavily in those sectors.

"The marine sector is another area of potential Australian advantage - we have the third largest area of ocean in the world in our Exclusive Economic Zone. This is an extraordinary resource. We already benefit from fishing, offshore energy and tourism but, unfortunately, we have a lamentable lack of knowledge of this resource."

However the nation was taking urgent steps to remedy this and develop sustainable management systems for ocean-based industries.

Just as Silicon Valley had shown that new industries and jobs can be founded on ideas, so Australia's advantages in farming, mining and marine science could be the basis for international advantage and high margin employment.

"Professor Michael Porter showed that such knowledge-based industrial successes arise from clusters of researchers and highly competitive companies. This is what we already have in mining... and similarly, in agriculture."

However there were a number of other emerging science-based sectors of great promise. The biomolecular work and advanced drug design taking place on Melbourne's famed "Parkville strip" could form the basis of a world-competitive pharmaceutical industry, he suggested.

"There are other clusters with potential such as die-casting for automotive parts, remote sensing, energy research, polymer research and food processing."

"CSIRO's non-industrial research is also an area of strength. Environmental research delivers clear benefits to the country by way of the quality of life we can all enjoy. In CSIRO these benefits are no poor cousins to the commercial research."

The environmental disaster seen in the Asian fires provides a shocking example of how important maintaining environmental research really is, Mr Allen says.

"There is no doubt that in Australia we have made serious environmental mistakes in the past. Both Government and the private sector are now making significant investments in conserving the fragile Australian environment."

Exports of this knowledge could make a real contribution to improving the environmental management of some of Australia's neighbours, he says.

"It is also open to us to develop scientific research and development as an export in its own right. Australia has a number of advantages in this field. This is an issue that we have to consider nationally and in CSIRO."

More information:
David Berry, CSIRO ph 08 9381 7542
Margaret Bryant, CSIRO ph 08 9387 0215
Julian Cribb, CSIRO ph 02 6276 6244
Copies of Mr Allen's speech are available by fax and email. Ring 02 6276 6478