NSW releases 20-year R&D Roadmap

The Office of the New South Wales Chief Scientist and Engineer has released ‘Shaping the future of NSW in Science and Technology: 20-year R&D Roadmap’.

The NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, said the Roadmap identifies four technology themes: Digital; Materials and Chemistry; Biotechnology; and Energy. It also identifies 39 applications where he believes NSW holds a competitive advantage. The Roadmap is designed to shape government-funded R&D, provide a welcoming framework for private sector R&D investment and help government, industry and the universities to coordinate R&D investment and activities.

“The next 20 years will see rapid and significant disruption in the global economy, with unprecedented challenges and opportunities,” says Durrant-Whyte in his foreword. He notes that demographic changes will put pressure on public infrastructure and services, but technologies such as robotics and AI can improve the quality and capacity of social and health services.

“Given the scale of our future challenges and opportunities, NSW needs to effectively focus its R&D investments and activities to maximise the positive impacts of science and technology R&D,” he says. “It makes sense to prioritise R&D investment towards technologies and applications where NSW has strategic needs or competitive advantages.”

The Roadmap identifies the all-pervasive nature of Digital R&D and the difference this can make across all sectors: software, AI, data analytics, quantum computing, blockchain, robotics, communications, sensing and the Internet of Things (IoT), and semiconductors.

Materials/Chemistry underpins the other three R&D themes; Biotechnology underpins two; while the Energy sector stands alone, supported by the other three R&D themes, as a critical sector embracing renewables, energy storage and power transmission.

According to the Roadmap’s Executive Summary, it will

• Help the NSW Government direct R&D investments and activities in science and technology, by assessing and prioritising areas where NSW has existing and emerging competitive advantages or strategic needs
• Identify capabilities NSW needs for strategic reasons, such as cyber security
• Signal where NSW welcomes private R&D investment and activities from businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators, startups and investors
• Assist government, industry and universities to coordinate research investment and activities
• Provide an ongoing evidence-based framework to assess NSW competitive advantages and monitor how they change over 20 years
• Highlight disruptive technologies that can be leveraged to increase prosperity and address critical economic, social and environmental challenges