Australian Science & Innovation Forum

Our Vision

To foster Australia’s innovation culture, champion STEMM start-ups, and encourage and facilitate the development of innovative new products and services from Australian research. We particularly focus on encouraging the development and teaching of entrepreneurial skills to emerging young researchers and business people.

Activities

We are undertaking a diverse range of activities, including:

Establishing networking and information sharing opportunities amongst our members
Disseminating information about innovation and entrepreneurship development opportunities
Organising regional and national events for our members
Advocating the teaching of start-up and entrepreneurial skills at undergraduate, PhD and postdoctoral level, across science, engineering, technical and business disciplines
Advocating technical and scientific literacy among people in law, finance and government
Collecting data to support the preparation of position papers relating to science, engineering and technology innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia
Advocating the development of policies to foster innovation and entrepreneurship
Coordinating Innovation Week each year
Identifying and supporting innovators and entrepreneurs through the emerging innovators’ list.

Partnering with the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

History

We launched ASIF in 2014 in response to a perceived ‘gap in the market’ for supporting the translation of Australia’s excellent science into world-class innovation. The idea came about after two of us attended a fantastic workshop on entrepreneurship hosted by the Israeli Academy of Science in late 2013. Organised by Nobel-prize winner Danny Shechtman, the meeting brought together researchers, entrepreneurs, government and industry leaders to talk about Israel’s incredibly successful innovation model. Breaking down barriers and providing incentives for groups to work together forms the heart of this model. The word culture came up again and again: a culture where academics place equal value on both basic and applied research; a culture of risk-taking and entrepreneurship; and a culture in governments that see money spent on supporting new businesses as investments and not expenditure.

Australia lacks a similarly unified approach. Our nation’s scientists and researchers are represented by national academies and institutes; university groups advocate for teaching and research; professional societies support legal and financial experts; and a wide variety of bodies promote the needs of businesses and industries. ASIF aims to tackle these gaps in the innovation pipeline by building a membership drawn from all parts of the scientific and technological entrepreneurship spectrum. Our members come from academia, government bodies and industry. Some engage in basic or applied research; others develop new businesses or work in legal or financial services.

N.B. STEMM = science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine