ON Translate 2026 - Translating Research Together

[Music plays and an image appears of a split circle, and photos move through of CSIRO activities in either side of the circle, and then the circle morphs into the CSIRO logo]

[Image changes to show four profile photos in circles across the middle, the CSIRO Logo and ON Translate top left corner, and text appears above and below the photos: Panel Discussion, Translating research together, DR David Ireland, Founder of TGD, Partner at Significant Venture, Prof Sharath Sriram, Chief Scientist of Western Australia, Grace Bird, Head of Atmosphere, Main Sequence Ventures, James Bradley, Co-Founder, Facet Amtech]

[Image changes to show a panel of four speakers, James Bradley, Grace Bird and Prof Sharath Sriram listening to Dr David Ireland talking]

Dr David Ireland: Welcome everybody. Welcome back to ON Translate. We've got a really exciting panel today to talk about research translation. I'd also just like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands in which we're meeting today and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and also extend that respect to any Indigenous Australians in the room today. I'd also like just to take a moment and reflect that for thousands and thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have been innovating and translating traditional knowledge into impact that has been, that shaped the environment and society sustainably for a very long time. I think there's a lot we can learn from that as we think today and beyond about how we do research translation better in this country.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

We've got a really great panel today and I'll introduce them in a moment but I also just wanted just to give us a little bit of context around what we're going to be talking about today. We had a really good panel this morning, hopefully everybody was here and got to listen to our panel, the panellists this morning talk about some of the things that they're seeing in the system. But I wanted to just touch on a couple of the important ones. I started doing research translation about 20 years ago and the system has changed really significantly in that time. Back when I started, if you thought about doing commercialisation, it was like referred to as going over to the dark side. It was looked at one of those things that researchers would do when they couldn't be a researcher. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to happen anymore, people are looking at it as like a legitimate pathway and people are really actively talking about how do we create impact from the knowledge that we're generating or the capabilities that we've developed? But in the last 12 months, the system seems to be accelerating and changing more and more.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and Grace having a sip from a glass of water]

As, you know, we heard the SERD review identified again that there remains a problem or a capability gap around how we do translation. And they pointed to some structural deficits in the system as well that make it harder for researchers to do it if they do decide to do that.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

And, but what I think is happening for probably more than what it certainly has happened in the past is that we're starting to see the policy environment change as well. And so we're at, you know, we're having for the first time in a really long time a look at the R& D tax incentive change. And I think that's going to have a really big impact because they're changing thresholds on that and they're changing some eligibility criteria on that. And that's going to have a big impact on the start-ups that are happening but also the large corporates that might be looking to universities and researchers to work with that might be able to get some refund back through that system, that incentive program. We're seeing changes in Capital Gains Tax. There may be a carve out we're not sure yet for start-ups, but that's going to have a really big impact on how investors look at deploying cash and how they think about risk and managing risk into the start-up environment.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and Grace having a sip from a glass of water]

And we're seeing things like AEA winding up, IGP winding up and a whole pile of other programs but like we also heard this morning, there are still like 140 programs out there to support research translation in this country.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

So there's a lot, a lot of things that are happening, right? And thankfully, more and more we are talking about impact and research translation. So we've got some really great panellists here that are bringing very different perspectives.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking while pointing at Sharath]

And so we have Sharath, who is an RMIT researcher, Professor, material sciences has spent some time turning those into medical technologies, but Sharath is also Western Australia's Chief Scientist and so going to be able to bring a lot of the policy analysis, the policy lens to the conversation today.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking while pointing at Grace]

We've got Grace. I didn't know this but you came up through policy, you’ve got a government background. Yeah, that's right. But also spent some time at Breakthrough Vic before now leading company creation at Main Sequence Ventures.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking while pointing at James while Grace takes a sip from a glass of water]

And then we got James, a two times founder, also a participant in the ON program in the past, in a couple of programs, but also a facilitator of the ON program as well, which is really good.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James, Grace and Sharath in turn]

So we got lived experience, we have an investor and we have I guess lived experience but also policy as well.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing up]

So I thought like a starting question, and we will have time for questions as well, so there should be a QR code that will pop up on the screen.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

So if you do have questions that you want me to ask the panel, please put it and they'll pop up on my iPad. And so we'll get to some audience questions in a moment. But just to start us off, I thought it would be really good just to start to tease out some of these different perspectives and maybe also introduce yourselves properly.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Sharath]

Sharath, maybe we'll start with you. Like what does research translation mean to you and how have you experienced it and how is it changing at the moment in the, in the spheres that you operate in?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking, as Grace is having a sip of water]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I think historically we keep repeating this fact that Australians are very inventive. We are very innovative but fail to actually make them into products and services.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking as David is having a sip of water]

And so to me, research translation is the ability to do that seamlessly.

And from a policy side or from a research side it's how do we remove all the barriers to do that.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath]

So often it's talent, access to the right people, capital, money to do it and often, at least from my experience, it's the right infrastructure. So how do you scale up and pilot locally? So at least that's my lived experience in the research translation space.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Grace]

Dr David Ireland: That's great. Grace, what about your your perspective on it?

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking and waving at the camera]

Grace Bird: Hi everyone, nice to be here with you all.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

As David said, I'm Grace and run our Atmosphere fund at Main Sequence which is our pre-seed funding platform. So we have a broad lens. We work really closely with the research ecosystem at the universities, the research institutes to to translate and ultimately commercialise research. And so from our perspective, in its simplest form, you know, it's about I think there's a place for fundamental research and, and that's, you know, maybe where the impact lies. But there's also for some fields of research, there's a path to translate it as many of you in this room would be aware of into, into impact. And so whether that's in the hands of a customer, a market, you know, into a new industry. And so our role at Main Sequence is really about the commercialisation pathway, building new companies that can become, you know, around that are based in research, novel science and engineering that's come out of Australia's publicly funded research and essentially creating new industries for Australia. So that's kind of our lens on research translation. Obviously there are many different pathways to, to translate research, and it's not the right path for every piece of research and it shouldn't negate fundamental research either. They should, you know, build, it should be sort of additive, you know, this ecosystem. So that's that's sort of our lens on it.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: That's great, thanks. James.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: G’day. James Bradley, currently the founder of, or co-founder of Facet Amtech. I sometimes say I was lucky that I've been able to hitch my wagon to a couple of cool things. I'm a non-traditional person who worked at a university. I wasn't what you'd call an academic. Found myself working with a chap on small wind turbines, helping him with his PhD, and we spun Diffuse Energy out.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking as Grace is having a sip of water]

Came through the program a few years ago and then lo and behold, well, that didn't go so well.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

And then lo and behold, a few years later sort of reconnected with Peter Richardson, with Facet Amtech with a catalyst in ammonia technology. And you can see the obvious link between wind turbines and ammonia which is zero.

[Laughter can be heard as image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

And so I guess my skill set is I just like building cool new things so here we are.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. Great. All right. So I wanted to make sure that this panel was a little different from the panel that we've just come out of and so I wanted to make sure this was a little more practical.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James]

So I wanted, maybe we'll start with you, James.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

So from someone who was actually doing the translation right now for a researcher turned founder/entrepreneur, what what's available in the system to help people, whether they're doing it or they're thinking about doing it? From your perspective, what's out there? What might they be able to access to help them do it?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Yeah. If I think back to, you know, six years ago, like the amount that's available now versus six years ago is way more. And if you look at six years before that, that was way more. And so there’s this hugely increasing cadence. Certainly locally for us, the university has gotten a lot better at dealing with what does a start-up look like. I think, you know, ten years ago all you heard from people was like, oh my God, the university is just doing everything they can to stop me. That probably happens sometimes under certain circumstances, but universities have gotten much, much better at that. And then local support, there's lots of local support. There's the ON program which gives support right across the ecosystem. Lots of other ecosystems have popped up and sort of followed suit. There are grants still, like you say, there's many, many grants, you just got to make sure that they're aligned to what you're doing. I think a lot of people chase grants to go and do a thing over here when you should be going that way. So there's some caution, ask me later, of course, some cautions there. But there's heaps right?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Grace]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very good. Thanks. Grace from, I mean, you.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Got a lot of it, albeit you forgot your…

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: … leaving some space for you.

[Laughter can be heard as image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: I think, I mean, I think you covered there’s programs. I think one of the things we've observed and shout out to Olga at the BB, the university ecosystem, there's more funds available now in the universities, the university teams and TTOs and commercialisation teams are doing even more work to make the process of commercialisation and translation more seamless. There's culture shifts happening that, you know, as James said, maybe have changed significantly in the last six to ten years. It's much it's a much easier pathway, I think, for researchers who want to be founders or researchers who want to see their work translated, maybe they're not leading it as the CEO. Maybe, as Kate Cornick said earlier, that's not the only path. Maybe they wanted to see their research, you know, brought to life by a, by another team. So there’s, I think the university culture shift has been amazing and there's a lot of work going on in that space. Most of the universities in Australia, I think more than half now have a fund or a proof of concept fund or an investment vehicle, which is a huge step change. There is grant funding still available, you know, despite some recent changes, which I think is really important. A lot of our companies we ask, you know, we work with them and we suggest to them that non-dilutive funding and dilutive capital from, whether it's Venture or other other type of investors, you know, we like to aim for 50/50 and we see them as hugely complementary and necessary.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking as David is taking a sip of water]

So grant funding, there's amazing programs, I think, you know, I think Cathy and Kate touched on it this morning as well but if, we work with a lot of researcher turned founders and it's a big journey to learn how to be a CEO and build a business.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

And so I think the supports that programs like ON, UQ, you know, the work that LaunchVic and Start-Up Vic do to kind of upskill people around company building is really important. We've launched, obviously, Atmosphere at Main Sequence, which is our version of early stage kind of lean in and ways which we engage with the research ecosystem to help them do company building as well. So I think there's, there's so much like I think Australia has come a long way. Again, I don't want to reiterate what was already said, but there's always more to do. I think we can be more bold. I think we can continue the culture change in Australia and kind of look, you know, like we've got so much capability. I think one of the stats, there's something that resonates a lot is that we're in the top 1% of I'm sure it's more than this now, but 15 fields of research globally. And yet Australia's economy is, it's 93rd on the economic complexity index, which basically is to say we're not realising the economic benefit of the amazing knowledge and research. So I think there's a lot of programs and support, there’s more we can do and part of that is cultural and part of it's I think, you know, programs and funding and support.

[Image continues to show David pointing at Sharath while James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: But just picking up and contrasting what they said.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Unfortunately we've dropped to 150, 150 complexity. I think the culture change for researchers and the research environment is critical. Our challenge is most of the incentives in the university systems discourage translation because they are funded through the traditional approaches of how much grant income you got in, not what you did with it, how many papers you publish and how many PhD students you complete. And so those are sort of the worst incentives to get translation done because you're not focused on the outcomes and impact. So I think the more universities change and the way federal funding comes in through research block funding, I think that shifts culture a lot. From a researcher perspective, I guess people really reflecting on their values of why they're doing translation matters and when they pass the baton on, because there's only a particular point to which researchers are suited. And the last point I'd make is we should use non-dilutive funding and grants as the icing on the cake or the accelerant. A lot of people design their business around grant funding. To me, that's not a business, that’s a charity. Your business has to stand on its own two feet with private capital and grant funding is an accelerant.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. Just one of the questions that came up here and just touching on the on the culture change, it was around, you know, what do we have to do, and I'll paraphrase a bit, but what do we have to do to embed this culture of translation, particularly into those future researchers that are going to be leading the way? So like the postgraduates, the PhD students, what do we have to do, particularly from a policy perspective?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: See, there were a couple of things we were trying to drive as culture change through the Australia's Economic Accelerator and the Trailblazer program.. So if you look at the Trailblazer program, 25% of its assessment was how are they changing incentive structures in universities? So they actually had to design different promotion criteria, different support systems. And I think that’s, unfortunately systems follow the money and so you have to use money to drive culture change. In terms of PhD training, it has to be completely redone if you're focused on translation. Currently, like I said, because universities are paid on PhD completions, the more completions they get, and faster, they get back more income and we need to move away from that. For example, with a couple of institutions I've been trying to see, can we actually design a venture builder PhD, which is focused wholly on translation but research based? So you are creating an innovation, have very clear IP ownership from day one, how the inventor and the PhD candidate are incentivised to actually take it to market. That's a very different way of a typical PhD where you're just focused on publishing and getting a thesis out.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. The other thing about culture that I think is really interesting and you you even mentioned it before, James, when you spoke about your first founder experience, you referred to it as, well, that was a bit of a failure. And I think that fear of failure drives a lot of people from avoiding this translation journey because, you know, partly researchers aren't formally trained in this like they are trained in their formal research processes. And so I'd be really interested, you know, from perspectives on the panel, like, is that changing? Are we becoming more accepting of this as a pathway? And is, are we, are we starting to question like this notion of, yeah, maybe my first start-up didn't end up exactly where I wanted it to, but it doesn't mean it was a failure. It just means that something changed in the system. Covid happened, supply chains were disrupted. You did nothing wrong, you know? So like, how is that changing?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Yeah, I think if you look, take Peter as an example. So the University of Newcastle in Mechanical Engineering has a room with no windows called The Cavern full of PhD students, well, it used to be. About a dozen PhD students worked in this room with no windows and a door that alarms if you open it so it was a really pleasant work environment.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking as David is coughing]

But that room ended up, six of them became MGA Thermal.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

Myself and Joss went out and did Diffuse Energy, and at that time Pete was a fledgling PhD student. And so he tells the story now of sitting there watching MGA spin out, James and Joss spun out Diffuse Energy. And so when he had this discovery in a lab, he was like, oh, I know what to do, like I've seen this all happen before. And so I think if we can keep that continuity of people seeing that progress and they see that there's a pathway there, and then it just it feels normal, right? It's not like, you know, when we did it the first time, everyone was like, you want to do what? And now it's kind of, you know, there's two teams here today from Newcastle. So you know it's a, it's a growing, it's just a momentum thing.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing to Grace]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah that's awesome.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: I agree. I just wanted to build on two points. Agree, I think surfacing and there is this work happening like I think the culture change certainly in the universities we collaborate with there's a growing awareness of different pathways. There's support from universities and the research institutes so I think the culture change is happening. I think celebrating the success and actually making people aware of what's going on and, you know, the different opportunities for translation, whether that be build a company or partner with industry or whatever it is, I think that's critical. And I think that’s, I think that work is taking place, it just takes time. Also, I just wanted to add a point. I know that you made a comment that, you know, researchers might not always be the founder. We have some series B companies that have been researchers turned CEOs of really late stage, highly successful, close to unicorn companies. So I just want to say that if you have the ambition and the desire to learn as a researcher and you want to be the CEO and you want to do it, you, you know, you can do it. You might not want to be though, and that's okay and there's other pathways where you can build a company or make that happen.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

So I think it's just it's the conversations like this. I think it's also practical things around like what are the pathways for PhD’s or professors to, to kind of start, you know, or engage in a company build, how to institute support that, I think that's important and we see a lot of work going on in that space. IP and that kind of pathway and those processes are really important in getting pace. And then I think also working, you know, I know a lot of the co-investors we work with like IP Group and Uniseed and the university funds, it's also about like the funding pathways and the, I guess the willingness to take a risk on something that's quite early where, you know, maybe the company doesn't quite exist yet and, you know, there's still things to build and prove. I think, you know, there's a need for all of us to lean in there as well. So it isn't whole ecosystem effort but I think that we're on the journey and I think talking about it more and kind of finding the, surfacing the pathways and celebrating them is important.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I think if you pick up on the word risk averseness, most of our organisations tie themselves up in knots around conflict of interest.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking as Grace is having a sip of water]

An inventor trying to get things out is not a conflict of interest, it’s a win win for everyone. And I think really shifting the dial in how that's dealt with and how you actually enable fast paced translation matters a lot.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

The second bit about failure, I always tell researchers the only guarantee is failure. If you've been a researcher, you've done in a lab, things are going to fail. That's what happens most of the time. It's what you learn from it. Same thing with a company. You have a company, things don't work out, you learn from it. You plan better for markets, you plan better for risk mitigation strategies. So from a policy side constantly making policy makers, parliamentarians understand that failure is a natural part of the process, and we're just looking at the average five out of 20 being successful might actually produce enough benefit. And so constantly accepting failure and not falling into the media trap matters a lot.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. So give it a go.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Investors also tend to love to back second time founders because there's so much learning and richness in, you know, if a company doesn't go well the first time round for whatever reason, you know, there’s, there's so much that a founder or research founder, whoever it is, CEOs, gain from that that experience, that venture investors at least often, you know, look at those companies really thoughtfully.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, something, another question that's come up here that I think is a really interesting one and it's talking about and again, I'll paraphrase, but it's talking about funding seems to be moving to really focus on translation but are we kind of cutting off our feet if we're not, then focusing on the fundamental research that then either informs or feeds into translation?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking as grace is having a sip of water]

And I think that sometimes that can be an unhelpful framing to think of it as an either/or. We either do translation or we do foundational research.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

It's like blue sky or applied. And like I've known some tremendously amazing researchers who do fundamental discovery research, who are also amazing at doing translation and starting up companies and doing whatever else having impact in other ways. But really, again, from different perspectives, like how do you see it? Is this something? Is it, I mean, am I wrong? Is it, is it you have to do one or the other or can you do both.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I guess from firsthand experience, we do both because the fundamental research is the pipeline of our patents and spin offs in five or seven years time. The challenge always is how do you fund both? And so as long as your translation pathway has a clear link to your fundamental science, you can keep funding the new pipeline. So from a company perspective, you are pretty much funding version 2.0 and version 3.0 of your product. But the real challenge comes in supporting the unknown. Like what is the new technology or the disruptive discovery which you didn't expect? How do you fund that? How do you actually explore that?

[Camera zooms in to a medium view of Sharath talking and looking to the right and glancing to the left]

So at least whenever we design policy and there's a lot of question around translation, at least I encourage we need to do at least 80% could be translation, but 20% needs to be for the disruptive and the blue sky. The reason for the translation focus from a policy perspective is often this is funded by taxpayers money and you have to explain to them how it's used and it's not explaining, saying it's blue sky research is not a tangible answer. So I think that's where we have to balance it and make it pragmatic.

[Image continues to show Sharath listening while looking to right]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, sure.

[Camera pans left and out to show Grace talking and Sharath listening, and then the camera zooms in on Grace talking]

Grace Bird: I don't think it's either/or. I think we do a great job at fundamental research, and there's an opportunity to do more in the translation space to realise the economic value of it. So but equally, as I said earlier, I think it's additive. And you know, we're not, there's different pathways. So I think, you know, if you're a researcher and you want to continue to focus on that fundamental research, you can absolutely do that and you can partner with someone or you can find a commercial CEO or an industry partner to, to go down the translation path for some of that research. So I think there's an opportunity for Australia, for us to realise the, the, the amazing knowledge and insights we, we have in our research institutes, but to still be a powerhouse in, in sort of that fundamental research. So I think yeah, I don't think it's an either/or.

[Camera pans out and to the left to show James talking and Grace listening]

James Bradley: I think it's called fundamental research for a reason.

[Camera pans in to a medium view of James talking]

I think that's where Prime has done an exceptional job where people like I know quite a few people who came through Prime went back into the university system, are doing brilliant research, but now they've got this other muscle in the back of their mind. They’re like, oh, there's an industry opportunity here and they're very good at quickly going and seeking out some assistance or help or just seeing where it has application. But I think yes, I don't think it's one or other. I think it's just a mind shift change on what happens when you get to a juncture point where you're like, oh, this might have some external value.

[Camera pans out showing James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. I just think it's important because I think there is, there can be a misconception out there that if I want to try this translation that I have to give up my fundamental and I don’t, I don't think you do. Like it might be, it might not be easy. And particularly from trying to find funding and managing publications because, you know, grants are biased towards, you know, a publication output, then, yeah, it's not to say that it's easy, but it is doable.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Grace]

Grace, I just want to come back to something you said around, you referred to, you know, bringing other people in to build teams.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

And one of the questions that have come up from the audience is around how do we, how do we help researchers build those teams as early as possible so they can start bringing in those extra skill sets to be exploring opportunities earlier than what you might be able to happen today?

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking, as the camera pans in to a medium view of Grace talking]

Grace Bird: I think while we were all talking, one of the things it's kind of like, what does, what does the person doing the research want to do? You know, like, do they want to lead the company or do they want to find a different pathway? And I think this is where the culture piece can come into it and where, you know, the university commercialisation teams where programs like ON, I think it's about having conversations, to be honest. Like one of the most valuable things some of our, you know, to what you were saying, James, one of the most valuable things some of our early stage deep tech founders found was talking to others and kind of learning about what the journey can look like and going to events like this and meeting people who might have the commercial kind of muscle that you might want to bring into your team. So I think, you know, even one of the things that we often find is sometimes we'll have a conversation with industry, you know, big corporate Australia or, you know, international corporates and we'll hear about their problems.

[Camera zooms out to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

And a year later we might think of, you know, a researcher in a university who has the answer to the problem that they're trying to solve. And so it can take time, but I think it's really about kind of connection and finding people. If you are, I mean, there's no harm in a conversation if you're a researcher that is thinking about like there's some potential in the insights that you've got or the research that you're doing, you know, you can talk to the commercialisation teams at university, you can reach out to venture investors, you can reach out to other founders. I think that's kind of the the very starting point. And then finding people, there are people who will help you. Like I'm looking at lots of faces I know in the audience who have brought talent into teams where they might be relevant. You know, there are folks who have worked in, you know, different for Facet, but there are folks who have worked in clean energy industry who can come in and be interested in building, like there's lots of interested builders.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

So I think it's about just finding the people who can help you. And again, like there's no commitment in having the conversations and kind of exploring things. So I think, ask, there's, I know most of the folks in the room and there's a lot of friendly people who who will help you along on the journey. And it can take time to find the right folks to bring into your, into your team. It's one of the hardest things I think is team building in an early stage deep tech company and actually for the whole journey. And it's something we deeply think about with the portfolio – those that we work with is like, how do we build globally competitive companies? You know, we've got the foundations in the research and the IP in the company. How do we build a globally competitive company around it? It can take time. So I think starting the conversations is the first point and finding the people who can connect you to to others.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. That's good. Did you have something?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Going to say I think there's been a huge change in tech transfer office. You know, TTO used to be a four letter acronym. They were kind of like the, no one wanted to talk to TTOs.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking as Grace is having a sip of water]

I think, you know, if you look at the the the team inside Newcastle now, they've got a great group of people who who can help you in a whole variety of ways. Like it doesn't have to be how am I going to do the spin out?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

It could be who's the appropriate industry partner?

[Laughter can be heard as image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

Also go talk to Grace, just on the DL.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

So you know the Atmosphere Fund now is there to help that really early stage whereas that that was a bit of a gap. Just go talk to a bunch of people - what every academic loves to hear “go talk to lots of people.”

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Even talk to one person who can be your champion I think is kind of the, yeah.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. So another question that's come up and it was something I was going to touch on as well, is there's this and I think we this, this whole conference actually is framed around, you know, research translation and I think there is a focus on how do we, how do we help individuals be better at it, right? And but it almost presupposes that the bottleneck is an individual problem as opposed to a system challenge. And I, and I just wanted to test that for a moment, right. And so we can think about how do we change the culture? How do we think about, how do we change behaviours and capabilities? But is it actually a structural problem? You know, are we asking researchers to do translation in a system that was never actually designed for translation or has that started to change? And I was, I wanted to put to you if you had a magic wand, right, if you could see one change in a system to make it easier for people to do translation once they decide to do it, what would that be?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James]

James, why don't we start with you?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Flexibility.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: To step in and out of the system to go from research?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: It's a, it's a one word thing that means lots of things. So I think everybody tries to build, like, here's the boilerplate, how we think this is going to work. Every start-up is entirely different with different challenges and different needs and different funding, different capital requirements, different timelines. And so trying to boilerplate all of that is just never, you're never going to get a one size fits all. And so I think we just across, across the board need to have, it's not pointing at any one system. It's like you just need flexibility right through the system just to allow the different shapes to fit through.

Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Yeah.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Yeah. I think flexibility is a really good one or just like a willingness to do the work on, from all parts, you know, like venture investors included. You know, there's, there's a need to have a risk appetite and to lean in and like take a punt and be bold and we look at our counterparts in, for instance, the US and just for the room, you know, like deep tech, there's such an opportunity. Now if you think of all the big companies at the moment like SpaceX, Nvidia, all the frontier AI labs, they're all sort of grounded in research and deep tech. So there's this great opportunity and something we observe with our, our peers in the US is that there's this boldness and a willingness to put in big checks and take the bet. But there's an ambition from the founders to build the thing and take the leap. The universities are willing to back it in and create the structure and the process to do that efficiently.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

I think everyone kind of leans in to make the system work in a really bold way. And then I know Kate and Cathy, I won't harp on about this point, I know Kate and Cathy touched on it, but there's a celebration of entrepreneurship as well. And I just think we're doing a great job, but there's more we can do to kind of elevate, you know, if you think about like, everyone knows who Elon Musk is, We’ve got a company in our portfolio that's just become a unicorn. It's $1 billion company. They're launching rockets, they’re called Gilmour Space. They're launching rockets into low earth orbit, well, they've got the rocket up a few times, but, but there are $1 billion company. They are Australia's equivalent, you know, they will be that and the founder is amazing. And most of you in the room, I assume, you know, might not have heard of Gilmour Space. And so like, what if we had a an ecosystem and the supports where everyone kind of knew these amazing companies in Australia and researchers, you know, potential founders knew who they were. So I think there's like visibility and then everyone kind of leaning in a bit harder and being a bit bolder would be sorry, those two things.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Sharath]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. That’s good, that’s great.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: See, I think people in the translation space focus a lot on the tech and the money. To me the culture change I would like is everyone constantly thinking all the time about their customer. That's why you're doing translation, to serve a customer, whether it's in healthcare, energy, getting into space. So constantly are you delivering and designing for your customer, asking that question all the time and is that the best pathway to them?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, we do have a question here. Why is the room so cold? I'm assuming it's not metaphorical.

[Laughter can be heard as image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

So I'm going to let somebody involved who is in charge of the AC can have a think about that one.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

There was a, there was a question that is a good one and it's about the infrastructure available to help researchers do that really critical pilot stage experimentation, which is really important to help go from, you know, convincing the industry to engage with you or investors to come in and invest in you.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James]

James, I know you were going through this right at the moment, right?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

So what's available out there to help people do that pilot scale research, particularly because you sometimes don't need the, you don't need access to that infrastructure forever. You just need it for that point in time and it can be very expensive to purchase it.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at James]

So like, what are you doing? And then we'll, we'll throw it to Grace and to Sharath.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: In our case, building it ourselves. And I guess this is the problem, right? When you've got a frontier technology it's not like you can, like we tried we went to CSIRO said, can we? They’re like, oh no, what you're doing breaks everything that we have, which it would. And so we went to a number of places to big ammonia companies. Oh no, that’s, you can't be putting water through our system please. So we've had to build it ourselves and that's where you need capital, right?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: And so maybe it's some capital and some grants and a lot of hard work. And I think where it gets difficult is not, there's like the, if you're building really big things. So we've got, just for fun, anyone who does maths in the room, I'm measuring milligrams of ammonia. Orica does a thousand tonne a day. So someone can work out the order of magnitude and don't yell it out because it scares me every time. So we've got a couple of steps to go and the step that's going to kill us is the four tonne a day, which is the last step before everyone and that's going to cost, if I was guessing man, about $100 million. And so building a capital stack, a resilient capital stack on the way to that, that when you get there, everyone's like, yep, we're going to do that. That's where a lot of companies fall over because one card comes out and the whole thing crashes down. That's happened to a few people and we need to be bold enough just to go, let's do it. And not, that it's just too fragile, probably more fragile than it needs to be because we just get a little bit antsy and $100 million is a lot of money. So, you know, there's a reason to be antsy, but.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: But yeah, but if you solve the ammonia problem.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Yeah, if you solve a big problem, maybe it's worth a crack.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Agree with you James. And just on the proof, you know, like that pilot stage, early stage funding. Not to say it's easy. I think there's more we can do in that space. There are avenues though and grants are one part. There's university proof of concept funds, as I said earlier, most of the universities have some sort of fund tied to them, which is often for some of that early work. There are investors who will support that early work. I think some of, the early work and that kind of first check is not so difficult if you've got the right support around you and you can frame up like what the commercial case is. Not every commercialisation kind of venture is venture capital backable, it might not be the right path for you.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

So there are other pathways that might be relevant. but there's access to capital, I think, for a lot of companies at the early stages, always great to have more and it would be great to see like a new iteration of federal and state grant programs come out for some of that. But I think there is a bit, I think it's as the companies kind of get to series A and that more industrial scale, depending on kind of the industries that they're operating in, that it becomes a bit more challenging. And I think that's where that boldness kind of comes in, where you see other countries like really leaning in to kind of build those things. And we're so lucky that we have funds like the NRF and kind of long term government backed capital funds, and we've got a lot of venture, but I think we can do more. But yeah, I mean, more grant programs would be helpful, but definitely suss out what you've got in terms of the university ecosystem as well.

[Image continues to show David pointing to Sharath as James, Grace and David are listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: But this is a topic I can talk about all day, but I'm going to keep it brief.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

To me in deep tech, pretty much every company here, the translation infrastructure is the technical value of death because once you have access to it, you have evidence. It makes it much easier to raise capital. So as a practical example, we work with a lot of companies taking semiconductor sensors and making medical devices. We used to make small volumes every week. They needed a few hundreds to 1000 run trials. Where would you do it? And so a couple of years back we built a pilot manufacturing facility for medical devices. The main difference, which from a research community we need to understand, is the standards and accreditation such facilities need to have. So we designed it from day one to be ISO 9001 accredited, ISO 13485 compliant. So that means every company going through doesn't need to go and redo the certification. They're not having those upfront costs.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

And James’ point, it’s capital intensive to set it up. And so that's where I feel government policy comes in in terms of creating such facilities where people can come in, take a footprint, set up a pilot one, get their evidence, dismantle and the next one comes in so that underlying infrastructure matters a lot. So we are trying to do this in Western Australia for 3 or 4 focus topic areas, covers energy, covers biomedical manufacturing and defence industries and additive manufacturing. So we want these sort of pilot manufacturing infrastructure make it easy for companies. To me it has two additional benefits. It leaves behind legacy infrastructure because companies come and go, they’ll grow out of it and then have their own capital to build their own. But more importantly, it leaves behind the technical talent because people understand how these work and that sort of permeates through the whole ecosystem.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, yeah. It's good. And there are like NCRIS facilities and other federally funded infrastructure facilities out there that people can access. And some of them I know either even have quite generous granting that can sit alongside, that don't take equity to fund some of the work as well and they're designed to help people do those early stage pilot studies. Another question that's come up, and it touches on a couple of things that you've mentioned and it talks about that we've got lots and lots of really amazing researchers who are really keen to do translation. They want to be, they want to be founders but the concept of being a CEO terrifies them. And what they'd really like to do is either stay within the university environment or be the CTO. But like, how do they then solve the problem of having a CEO that an investor can look at and go, yeah, that's a relevant person. You know, you're not a, you're not a consultant who you've just flown in to do a pitch deck. So like, so for the founders out there who may be in that boat who don't want to be a CEO, but they do want to do some level of translation, like what do you do? How do you manage that?

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: You can plan your way out of that. And so if you use, MGA Thermal is probably a good example of that. So Eric wanted to get the technology out of the university, kind of realised that it was going to be this bloke that was going to do it. So he did it himself and then early on brought in a commercial person who sat underneath him with a perfect view of one day Andrew was going to take over and become the CEO. And that's worked quite well and it's probably happened a couple of times now. And so you can plan your way out of that. You might just have to be the temporary CEO and, I don't know, suck it up. Or you know, I know Main Sequence at times has done the, put all the pieces of the puzzle together and bring in a CEO to help you out. So there's, there's different ways to cut that cookie.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Yeah, totally. I won't ,I won't dwell on that too much, but I think James has covered it. But for us, like within our Atmosphere fund, for instance, that's our earliest fund where things might not be fully formed around the company, but we think there's a really great opportunity there where, you know, for instance, we've got founders, researcher turned founder CEOs who have said to us pretty openly, and this is a great thing to think about as you go through the process or have conversations like try and understand what the CEO role is. We had a company that were just investing in at the moment, and the CEO initially was the research founder, they’re an AI company. The CEO was the research founder. They brought in a really good commercial co-founder and the co-founder was the CTO. And as they were kicking off their pre-seed raise process, the researcher founder said, “oh, this capital raising is like so hard. I really am not enjoying it. I don't like it at all. I hate doing the pitch decks. This is not my jam.” And they were talking to an advisor this is before we came in, and the advisor said, well, that's like a key role of the CEO. So maybe that's not what energises you. And I think there was just this misconception that because he was kind of the research lead that he had to come in and and be the CEO and it wasn't the case and they've ended up swapping roles between them, no influence from us, and it's a great fit and he's much more energised as essentially chief technical officer and the CEO's kind of ramped the business right up and built some great momentum.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

So I think some investors, particularly at the early stages, will work with you if you want to have a go at being the CEO. A lot of, a lot of investors at this early stage will understand that and might have, you know, an honest two way conversation about what that needs to look like and, you know, what the role is. And in other cases, you might honestly say like, I've got something really interesting that I know industry wants or that I know can solve a big problem or be a new industry, whatever it is. And you know, you might be able to talk to your investor or your university partner and say, like, I think I need to bring, I'd like to find someone to come in. Can you help me find, you know, network with people to find the right person? So, you know, as James said at Main Sequence, we've also built companies where we've found the, we call it venture science. We find the big industry problem, we bring in a commercial CEO like usually someone who's got deep industry experience and then we find the research that solves the problem. We wrap it all up and we fund it and a number of our companies have been built in that way. So there's a whole lot of different, I think there's no, it's not one size fits all. But the best way to think about it is to be honest and reflect on what you, what energises you and what the role would be.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

One other thing which I just wanted to add, which is practical, is obviously AI is more accessible to everyone now and it's a great way to fast track your learning and understand like, what is the day to day role of a CEO? You know, like what, what would be my starting point? There's a lot of, you know, a lot of resources that are practical, even available on our website, but I'm sure ONs as well. So there's things that will help you kind of go on the journey as to like what should, what will I expect in the business building path in the earliest stages? What does capital raising even mean? Like we don't expect that any of our research founders will deeply understand that because you don't know it until you go through the process really. And so there’s, yeah, research, resources to help you learn, but there's also an opportunity to step out when, you know, if you don't want to go on the journey along the way, there's ways to do that.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at Sharath]

Dr David Ireland: That's great. Sharath, do you want to add anything?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I think you're being very clear from the beginning about what drives you, what interests you. The reality is for a start-up for the first seven eight years, the CEO is going to spend 80 to 90% of the time raising money, talking to investors and probably the other 10 or 15% of the time dealing with people issues. You actually don't get to do any tech fun stuff. So you have to be very clear why you're getting in as a CEO.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, I think another point just to tease out in that and you mentioned it, there's no one size fits all. The other part of this conversation that that phrase fits with is that I think often when we talk about research translation, there is a bias towards the model being a start-up, but actually translation means lots and lots of other things. And whether it's a license or whether it's working with policy or whether it's doing a social venture or just any reflections on that. And possibly that's like, are we seeing new models emerge that you can share with people? Because I think one, one of the things I sense that like stops people from wanting to do it is that if they aren't interested in doing a start-up, it's like, well, then translation is not for me, but it's like, yeah, but there are lots of other different models that you can do translation through. So maybe, Sharath, from a policy perspective, particularly as a Chief Scientist, like what else is happening out there that other models that people might be able to consider?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I think because the way forward depends on every piece of IP, the customer is different, the model is different, access to advisory expertise which tells you what is the best path forward for IPs, what is missing in the ecosystem? Often it comes through tech transfer offices. Despite how well-meaning it might be there is an inherent conflict maybe where they want to own or control part of it as that institution. So it means some of the decisions may not be in the best interest of the IP and the inventors. So at least from a WA context, we are actually trying to set up a centralised state commercialisation hub which supports that…

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah ok.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: …provide independent advice on intellectual property, pathways to market…

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, that’s true.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: …work with the inventors and then provide the feedback to the institutions that this is probably going to get you the best value and then start pairing it with pre-seed funds and pilot investment.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah that's excellent.

[Image continues to show David pointing at James as Grace, Sharath and David are listening to James talking]

James Bradley: I think we have potentially overcorrected towards, you know, we'll get ten start-up founders, we never get the dude who got the billion dollar licensing deal up on stage to, we celebrate that even less, right. And if I look back at the history of Newcastle, at least, so locally, we've had some absolutely stellar licensing deals that have done really, really well for everybody. And they used to be heavily celebrated and now maybe not so much. And so, again to the celebrate, we just need to hold these things up and say this is fantastic. So I think a lot of people now go, oh, if I want to spin out my technology, the only pathway is to quit my day job and, and go take this heavily risky thing. There's many, many ways to do that. Go talk to the TTO.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah. I mean, and I think universities make far more money out of licensing income and far, far more money out of industry collaboration than they do out of commercial returns from start-ups. And that's not to say that it'll always be that way, but traditionally that's certainly how it's been. Look, I'm conscious we've got two minutes and seven seconds left before we get, we get clapped off stage because there is lunch on the other side of this. So I just wanted to finish with, if you had to like give a couple of tips and tricks to the people out in the audience that we haven't already covered, to either encourage them or to help them do research translation better than they otherwise might be able to what would you leave them with? What would your message be?

[Image continues to show David pointing to Sharath as James, Grace and David are listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I would say two things. Understand intellectual property protection better, whether you should protect it and when you should protect it. And the second one is it is all about the customer. The translation is not just for the sake of it. You have to focus on the customer.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

Grace Bird: Love the customer point. I think, a couple of things for me is have a conversation. You know, we've talked about all the different pathways today, there’s no harm in kind of learning about the kind of translation pathway, even if you don't end up or intend to pursue it. One of our founders in our portfolio who runs a quantum sensing company, said to me he was in ON eight years before he kind of meaningfully spun out the company and the most value for him was talking to other founders in the deep tech kind of research ecosystem and just learning from them about what the pathway looked like and what to expect. There's no harm in doing that.

[Image continues to show James, Sharath and David listening to Grace talking]

So I think that's one thing, just to kind of understand the journey. And actually like the kind of bigger piece of advice would be don’t, this ecosystem is very supportive and helpful, but but ask for help. Like please, you know, one of the things I love about working with our port close is, you know, they'll come to us and be like, okay, we've got to solve this problem. We might not have the answer, but we'll try and throw everything Main Sequence has at it. And most of the supporters in the ecosystem, the universities, etc. will try and do the same. So I think don't be ashamed or embarrassed to ask for support or say, you know, I've never built a company before and I want to go down this path. Like how do I do that? Where do I start? So I think asking for people to give you some guidance is, you know, you don't have to take the advice, but I think is, yeah, valuable.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: It would be remiss of me not to also talk about the customer. And so I think, you know, immerse yourself a little bit in the market and the space that you want to operate in so that you really do, really do understand it and what goes on under the hood. And then, I think to Grace's point, the ecosystem is ever growing and there's sort of, you know, we made the, call it the mistake, of we came and did ON the first time and we all of a sudden had this huge, you know, Australia wide network and then we went, we don't really know anyone locally. Right? And so we had to kind of go back and then immerse ourselves into the local community and actually work out what was going on locally. And it turns out lots was the answer. And so you need to immerse yourself in it and there is aeons of help. You just got to put your hand up.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, that’s great.

[Image continues to show Grace, Sharath and David listening to James talking]

James Bradley: Everyone, everyone is helpful.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: You can add one more.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and David listening to Sharath talking]

Prof Sharath Sriram: I think because I work with a lot of deep tech research founders, I just say perfect is the enemy of good. Don't keep chasing the perfect product. Get the first product out and you can refine it.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

Dr David Ireland: Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah, that’s great. Look, thank you very much. We've had some really wonderful questions so I appreciate everybody who's been adding questions to the list, made my job a lot easier so it's really good.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at the panel members]

Also thank you, panel members.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

That's super interesting insights and different perspectives that you've brought to a really important topic and one that is really good as somebody who has been operating in this system for ages and who really enjoys the community and the growing community that is here. It is a really important topic that we do keep talking about and we do work out how do we, how do we do it better?

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing up]

But while this panel session is now closing, the conference is certainly open and I think there are some slides that need to come up.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

This afternoon, we are moving into lunch now. We are moving into lunch, but after lunch there are, there is another panel that's happening here around navigating support and funding landscape for research translation. So come and check that out if you want to get a bit more information on funding that's available.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing to the left]

There's also a workshop that's happening down where registration is and where lunch is provided around how to network. Even if you don't really want to do it, networking is a really important one to do.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking]

But over lunch there's actually some collaboration tables that are there and we've got some really great groups that are represented. We've got Main Sequence there, we've got ONs innovation collaboration programs there and a few other organisations are represented there. I would really encourage you in the interest of going and participating and getting to meet people from across the system. Yeah, so we've got Cicada, we've got Breakthrough Victoria, RTI international and a few others. So make sure you go and say hello, work out what other support is available to help you do research translation. And I would absolutely encourage you make sure you come back and you support the ten teams that are coming through the Accelerate program. They're pitching on this stage at about 315 this afternoon. You are going to be impressed, they’re awesome. So come and say hello and give your support to them.

[Image continues to show James, Grace and Sharath listening to David talking and pointing at the panel members and then he gives a wave and claps]

Once again, thanks to the panel and thanks for coming along today and enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks.

[Applause can be heard as the image changes to show the CSIRO logo with text: CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency]