Group of Eight Defence Collaboration and Commercialisation Summit

9am on Tuesday 9 April 2019 at the University of Adelaide

Good morning everybody, and particularly to Professor Freshwater, my friend and colleague from Western Australia, Professor Rathjen and Ms Vicki Thomson, and distinguished guests. It's particularly wonderful to see so many people here that I know from so many different aspects of my life and my career here today. But first of all, I'd like to thank Uncle Rod for that lovely welcome to country, to the Kaurna people who are the original custodians of the Adelaide plains, and the land on which we meet here today. I also pay my respects to their elders, past, present and, of course, emerging.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply honoured to be here today, having recently been appointed as the Minister for Defence Industry. It's a portfolio that I know very well and that I am deeply passionate about, and in many respects, it is a culmination of my career to date. Over nearly 30 years, I served in the Army in both reserve and full time roles, and during that time I came to deeply appreciate that there is no greater constitutional responsibility for any Australian government than the defence and security of our nation.

In 2011, I had the extraordinary privilege to spend a year at the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, and I see at least one of my classmates here today. But for me it was an opportunity to critically think, to write and also to examine my ethical underpinnings. It helped me to fully develop my own personal adaptive leadership style, and my intellectual and strategic underpinnings in this portfolio, which at the time I applied to some large and complex change projects that I led within Army and then, of course, within the Parliament and then in executive government. So there I also found my own version of leadership, and as a career reservist and also as a woman, I had very different way of looking at Defence. But I also learnt to balance strong and decisive leadership with, I think, a more compassionate style of leadership.

I know at the time that I wasn't the norm amongst my military peers, but over time I came to value my unique perspective that I brought and I also like to think that occasionally they did too. But all of this prepared me very well to become the Army's Adjutant General, and later senator, and now as a Minister of the Crown. But firstly, at the heart of my job as a Senator for Western Australia, is to help facilitate and progress success for Western Australians, and also now for the nation more widely to realise change, large and small. When I returned home to Western Australia after concluding my Army career, I quickly became a very enthusiastic advocate for Western Australian defence and space industries, and the adjacent industries such as the resource sector and agricultural sector that have powered my state's economy, and the nation's economy. Today Western Australia generates nearly 40 per cent of our nation's commodity export income and that has been no accident.

From our early days, Western Australia was dislocated by distance from the other Australian colonies. We had to become self-reliant. We had to trade. We had to build our state on the bold vision and the spirit of enterprise and entrepreneurship. This was in our DNA decades before law makers and decision-makers decided at last to put innovation and smarts up in lights. They did that because innovation was the key to improvement, to progress and excellence, in all our human endeavours. And yet, not only in my own home state but right across Australia, despite our innovation and our smarts it was very clear to me, that we didn't appreciate what we do here in Australia so well and nowhere more so than in our own G8 universities.

When I went back to Western Australia and I started talking about our deep and thriving manufacturing base, including shipbuilding, West Australians said I was mad. I was on talkback radio and people were ringing in saying she's mad, she doesn't know what she is talking about. But of course we do and Western Australia's manufacturing base was growing at 5 per cent per annum for the past 15 years. And West Australians didn't know that and certainly I suspect most people in our nation didn't understand that. And what has been driving that is innovation, it's smarts, it's the application of science and technology.

My point here is this is not just about Western Australia; it's really the story of our nation, of Australia. I believe that all of us need to know and really understand and believe in what we do well. We need to put up in lights, our innovations and our achievements. Everybody here knows what many of those things are, and a lot of you had been responsible for them. Everything from Wi-Fi to plastic bank notes, the enterovirus vaccine, to extended wear contact lenses and cochlear implants, the black box recorder, spray on skin, the ultrasound scanner, the winged keel. These are all things that the nation, that every Australian child should be able to reel off, understand, appreciate and be proud of.

Now that short list, far from does justice to the full sweep of Australian inventions that have changed the world and those that are yet to change the world. But what it does reminds us is here in Australia, we had the ingenuity, we have the capability and we have the expertise right here. What we have lacked in the past is the confidence in ourselves and to back ourselves. So what I think, and what this government believes, is that we need to do better, we need to be far better at backing our own record and our reputation and we need to pull together the ingredients of innovation and success. And while as Professor Freshwater just said the word ‘innovation’ itself is sometimes been overused, innovation is the key to creating and expansion of business in Australia and industries across all of our sectors. It's essential for the growth of the skilling of our workforces and also a prosperous and much more flexible economy.

To remain productive and globally competitive takes cutting-edge research within companies and in collaboration with research and academic institutions which I know all G8 universities are very adept at doing. For all aspects of business, they have to be innovative and it's not just in material outputs but also in services, systems and process as well - they need innovation just as much as products do. So for me in my role as a Senator and now as the Minister for Defence Industry is very clear: not only to champion our industries but also to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration and engagement between heavily siloed industries, and this is clearly happening.

In WA for example we have Square Kilometre Array supported by the University of Western Australia and Curtin University. They are also co-founders of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy. This is now one of the top university based radio astronomy research centres in the world and its scientists are working on projects with the European Space Agency, with NASA and other research teams around the world. There is the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre based at UWA, a significant player in the discovery of the first gravitational wave events. There are collaborations now between NASA and Woodside, NASA and Curtin University and Lockheed Martin and many, many more. And all of that research, that cross industry research, has application for defence as well.

But still too few Australians know of the wonderful work our universities and industry are doing together, and I think this has to change. So I arrived here at the very issue we're all gathered here to look at today and I'd like to express my admiration and thanks to the Group of Eight universities for your leadership in convening the summit here today. One of the central questions now before you all today is how we can ensure that the Australian Defence Force has access to the very best in the Group of Eight capability in building its own cutting-edge fifth generation technology. This is starting to be realised through closely collaborative research, as well as equipping your graduates with the core skills for an innovative, agile and resilient Australian Defence Force. And this is not business as usual for any of us. It's not for defence, it's not for industry and it is not for universities. This is pioneering territory for all of us, but it's not elsewhere in the world. I've seen the best examples of it, particularly in the United States and in Israel, and everybody in this room is now capable of leading that for here in Australia.

I like to call this, in my own mind, a twenty-first century ‘town and gown’, which is an expression I know the universities that you are very familiar with. But rid of all the historical tensions that that expression might suggest, this heightened form of collaboration I think is flush with possibility and potential in the twenty-first century. But it does require shared purpose, leadership, communication, resources and structures; new thinking about venture capital and how we make venture capital this country that is so comfortable in the resources sector now comfortable in the high tech sector. It requires deep and longstanding partnerships to be further enhanced across all sectors.

If I can now go to the government's touchstone - the 2016 Defence White Paper - which was the most rigorous and comprehensive assessment of Australia's security environment in our nation's history. The ADF itself is already well-respected worldwide for its capability and professionalism of our men and women in uniform. The challenge I then find in the White Paper is to stay the cutting edge as we face growing security uncertainty globally. We face complexity in high tech conflicts around the world.

So our collective challenge in this room is to deliver a fully fifth generation ADF. As well as investing in our people and in the physical and digital infrastructure, that this challenge demands more sophisticated collaboration. Underway right now are 262 agreements between universities represented here in the Group of Eight. Between the Group of Eight, defence, and defence science and technology, combined these 262 agreements are worth over $55 million. And more widely in the last year, financial year alone DST entered into more than 380 project agreements with 26 universities, an investment of close to $46 million. Over the next decade the Federal Government is investing more than $200 billion in advancing our defence capability. And significantly, and something that I am incredibly proud of personally, is that we are the first government in our nation's history to back the intellect and capability of Australians to deliver this next generation of equipment and support for the ADF. Integral to our approach is building an internationally competitive and innovative industrial base.

In particular we see small and medium enterprises as the incubators powering and strengthening this base. Just last month I launched the government's Defence Policy for Industry Participation, and this policy is all about maximising the opportunities for all competitive Australian businesses and industries, national and local, to participate in our defence industry. Again, the best results come from collaboration: defence industry working together and partnering with the research sector, and last week's Budget embedded these commitments. We have set up defence grant programs to help SMEs build capability and expand export opportunities. Our Centre for Defence Industry Capability is now delivering expert industry advice to no less than 550 Australian SMEs. SMEs, I believe, our universities should also be working closely with. With the appointment last week of small business expert and advocate Kate Carnell as co-chair of the CDIC advisory board, SMEs will have expanded opportunities to participate in strategic partnerships with defence and I hope in time with universities, and they'll have the opportunity to grow their businesses right here in Australia.

And then of course, there's our $90 billion Naval Shipbuilding Program which is something near and dear to many of us here in South Australia, Western Australia and now right across our nation. As part of that there is the Defence Innovation Hub which is backing innovation projects from early concepts, testing to advances prototypes. In particular, what I think will be of likely interest to most of you here, is our Next Generation Technologies Fund. This fund is managed by DST who lead Defence's collaborations with universities. It's DST's job to assemble the best teams of researchers from right across Australia, as well as overseas, to meet Defence's research priorities.

Part of their responsibilities is to better tap into the collective expertise of the academic sector here in Australia. I should note that DST is one of the biggest employers of STEM students in Australia, and growing our STEM capability is obviously fundamental to advancing science nationally. DST really needs your assistance in that. In this regard, we've also released the first Defence Industry Skilling and STEM Strategy which sets out how the government is helping Australia's defence industry to equip their workforce in the coming decades. Now on board as Australia's new Chief Defence Scientist is a renounced STEM champion, research collaborator, and wonderful professor, Tanya Monro, the former DVC of research and innovation at the University of South Australia.

Priorities for the Next Generation Technologies Fund involve complex science and deep technical expertise, work in areas such as quantum technologies, integrated intelligence, enhanced human performance, space and of course cyber. To date, the Next Generation Technologies Fund has provided $130 million to support over 140 research activities. This research has involved 24 universities, fifteen SMEs, three primes and the CSIRO. Just last financial year, eight universities received $11.5 million funding for nine different projects in the previous fund. In total $730 million has been committed to this fund over the next decade. There are important progresses being made in a number of these projects, a great example is the Grand Challenges Program which is addressing counter-improvised threats. This is a high stakes, high impact project. After a strong response from industry and academia, a rigorous evaluation process, eight universities, 12 companies and the CSIRO were have chosen to collaborate in developing prototypes with threat detection and defence mechanism.

As I mentioned, cyber and quantum technologies are high priorities for the fund. Defence and Data61 are now collaborating with thirteen Australian universities to develop new approaches to cyber security, around resilience, situational awareness, decision support and machine-based cyber operations. In the quantum front, the Government has established the Quantum Technologies Research Network. This is all about partnering with industry, academia and government research agencies to explore the opportunities for using quantum systems to solve defence problems. We're also collaborating separately with the Australian National University on quantum research. Now these are just some of the examples of the many that I could cite, but I think they're a great example of what the government is doing and what Defence is now doing with the university sector. I referred earlier to the increasingly complex strategic environment we're operating in. Technological disruption adds risk, not only to long-term defence projects but also to the nation's security. And that is why it is so important we have strong protections against the transfer of critical and sensitive military technology which could pose a threat to the security and to the defence of Australia.

Now, I raise this issue today because I know that there are some in this room who have concerns about the government's response to recommendations as made as a result of Dr Vivienne Thom's review of the Defence Trade Controls Act. This Act is fundamental to the Government's continuing efforts to protect current and future national security, but the government also knows the importance of making sure the future amendments to the Act don't unnecessarily restrict trade, research, and vitally important international collaboration. So with this in mind, I do want to assure you that we have engaged Dr Thom to consult with you and other key stakeholders, to help Defence develop practical approaches to any amendments. The issues are not straightforward and I'm pleased to keep working with you to make sure we get this balance right.

So ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, simply put innovation drives defence capability and research drives and underpins innovation. It sounds easy, but of course we all know it is far from simple. But it is absolutely critical nonetheless. So I say to you, the Group of Eight universities and your broad academic community, the Government and Defence, both need your help to hone our defence capability and to protect our national interests. We need your curiosity, we need your intellect, we need your networks of research and your peer review to stimulate and produce the highest quality advice to solutions to problems, to keep our ADF safe.

My notion of twenty-first century ‘town and gown’ collaboration has to be underpinned, by three things together: a shared confidence in our ingenuity, capability and expertise; a willingness to celebrate and back our own achievements; and finally, the courage to challenge old assumptions and push the boundaries of research and enterprise to new heights. This summit is an incredibly important platform to allow this to happen. As Professor Rathjen noted in his opening comments, we have the people in this room to make it happen. I'm keen in the coming weeks and months to get an update on the discussions and to support you in any way I can to develop this twenty-first century ‘town and gown’. So many thanks, ladies and gentlemen and please know that your contributions and your deliberations here today are greatly valued by the government and I look forward to hearing the outcome. Thank you.

Good morning everybody, and particularly to Professor Freshwater, my friend and colleague from Western Australia, Professor Rathjen and Ms Vicki Thomson, and distinguished guests. It's particularly wonderful to see so many people here that I know from so many different aspects of my life and my career here today. But first of all, I'd like to thank Uncle Rod for that lovely welcome to country, to the Kaurna people who are the original custodians of the Adelaide plains, and the land on which we meet here today. I also pay my respects to their elders, past, present and, of course, emerging.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply honoured to be here today, having recently been appointed as the Minister for Defence Industry. It's a portfolio that I know very well and that I am deeply passionate about, and in many respects, it is a culmination of my career to date. Over nearly 30 years, I served in the Army in both reserve and full time roles, and during that time I came to deeply appreciate that there is no greater constitutional responsibility for any Australian government than the defence and security of our nation.

In 2011, I had the extraordinary privilege to spend a year at the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, and I see at least one of my classmates here today. But for me it was an opportunity to critically think, to write and also to examine my ethical underpinnings. It helped me to fully develop my own personal adaptive leadership style, and my intellectual and strategic underpinnings in this portfolio, which at the time I applied to some large and complex change projects that I led within Army and then, of course, within the Parliament and then in executive government. So there I also found my own version of leadership, and as a career reservist and also as a woman, I had very different way of looking at Defence. But I also learnt to balance strong and decisive leadership with, I think, a more compassionate style of leadership.

I know at the time that I wasn't the norm amongst my military peers, but over time I came to value my unique perspective that I brought and I also like to think that occasionally they did too. But all of this prepared me very well to become the Army's Adjutant General, and later senator, and now as a Minister of the Crown. But firstly, at the heart of my job as a Senator for Western Australia, is to help facilitate and progress success for Western Australians, and also now for the nation more widely to realise change, large and small. When I returned home to Western Australia after concluding my Army career, I quickly became a very enthusiastic advocate for Western Australian defence and space industries, and the adjacent industries such as the resource sector and agricultural sector that have powered my state's economy, and the nation's economy. Today Western Australia generates nearly 40 per cent of our nation's commodity export income and that has been no accident.

From our early days, Western Australia was dislocated by distance from the other Australian colonies. We had to become self-reliant. We had to trade. We had to build our state on the bold vision and the spirit of enterprise and entrepreneurship. This was in our DNA decades before law makers and decision-makers decided at last to put innovation and smarts up in lights. They did that because innovation was the key to improvement, to progress and excellence, in all our human endeavours. And yet, not only in my own home state but right across Australia, despite our innovation and our smarts it was very clear to me, that we didn't appreciate what we do here in Australia so well and nowhere more so than in our own G8 universities.

When I went back to Western Australia and I started talking about our deep and thriving manufacturing base, including shipbuilding, West Australians said I was mad. I was on talkback radio and people were ringing in saying she's mad, she doesn't know what she is talking about. But of course we do and Western Australia's manufacturing base was growing at 5 per cent per annum for the past 15 years. And West Australians didn't know that and certainly I suspect most people in our nation didn't understand that. And what has been driving that is innovation, it's smarts, it's the application of science and technology.

My point here is this is not just about Western Australia; it's really the story of our nation, of Australia. I believe that all of us need to know and really understand and believe in what we do well. We need to put up in lights, our innovations and our achievements. Everybody here knows what many of those things are, and a lot of you had been responsible for them. Everything from Wi-Fi to plastic bank notes, the enterovirus vaccine, to extended wear contact lenses and cochlear implants, the black box recorder, spray on skin, the ultrasound scanner, the winged keel. These are all things that the nation, that every Australian child should be able to reel off, understand, appreciate and be proud of.

Now that short list, far from does justice to the full sweep of Australian inventions that have changed the world and those that are yet to change the world. But what it does reminds us is here in Australia, we had the ingenuity, we have the capability and we have the expertise right here. What we have lacked in the past is the confidence in ourselves and to back ourselves. So what I think, and what this government believes, is that we need to do better, we need to be far better at backing our own record and our reputation and we need to pull together the ingredients of innovation and success. And while as Professor Freshwater just said the word ‘innovation’ itself is sometimes been overused, innovation is the key to creating and expansion of business in Australia and industries across all of our sectors. It's essential for the growth of the skilling of our workforces and also a prosperous and much more flexible economy.

To remain productive and globally competitive takes cutting-edge research within companies and in collaboration with research and academic institutions which I know all G8 universities are very adept at doing. For all aspects of business, they have to be innovative and it's not just in material outputs but also in services, systems and process as well - they need innovation just as much as products do. So for me in my role as a Senator and now as the Minister for Defence Industry is very clear: not only to champion our industries but also to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration and engagement between heavily siloed industries, and this is clearly happening.

In WA for example we have Square Kilometre Array supported by the University of Western Australia and Curtin University. They are also co-founders of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy. This is now one of the top university based radio astronomy research centres in the world and its scientists are working on projects with the European Space Agency, with NASA and other research teams around the world. There is the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre based at UWA, a significant player in the discovery of the first gravitational wave events. There are collaborations now between NASA and Woodside, NASA and Curtin University and Lockheed Martin and many, many more. And all of that research, that cross industry research, has application for defence as well.

But still too few Australians know of the wonderful work our universities and industry are doing together, and I think this has to change. So I arrived here at the very issue we're all gathered here to look at today and I'd like to express my admiration and thanks to the Group of Eight universities for your leadership in convening the summit here today. One of the central questions now before you all today is how we can ensure that the Australian Defence Force has access to the very best in the Group of Eight capability in building its own cutting-edge fifth generation technology. This is starting to be realised through closely collaborative research, as well as equipping your graduates with the core skills for an innovative, agile and resilient Australian Defence Force. And this is not business as usual for any of us. It's not for defence, it's not for industry and it is not for universities. This is pioneering territory for all of us, but it's not elsewhere in the world. I've seen the best examples of it, particularly in the United States and in Israel, and everybody in this room is now capable of leading that for here in Australia.

I like to call this, in my own mind, a twenty-first century ‘town and gown’, which is an expression I know the universities that you are very familiar with. But rid of all the historical tensions that that expression might suggest, this heightened form of collaboration I think is flush with possibility and potential in the twenty-first century. But it does require shared purpose, leadership, communication, resources and structures; new thinking about venture capital and how we make venture capital this country that is so comfortable in the resources sector now comfortable in the high tech sector. It requires deep and longstanding partnerships to be further enhanced across all sectors.

If I can now go to the government's touchstone - the 2016 Defence White Paper - which was the most rigorous and comprehensive assessment of Australia's security environment in our nation's history. The ADF itself is already well-respected worldwide for its capability and professionalism of our men and women in uniform. The challenge I then find in the White Paper is to stay the cutting edge as we face growing security uncertainty globally. We face complexity in high tech conflicts around the world.

So our collective challenge in this room is to deliver a fully fifth generation ADF. As well as investing in our people and in the physical and digital infrastructure, that this challenge demands more sophisticated collaboration. Underway right now are 262 agreements between universities represented here in the Group of Eight. Between the Group of Eight, defence, and defence science and technology, combined these 262 agreements are worth over $55 million. And more widely in the last year, financial year alone DST entered into more than 380 project agreements with 26 universities, an investment of close to $46 million. Over the next decade the Federal Government is investing more than $200 billion in advancing our defence capability. And significantly, and something that I am incredibly proud of personally, is that we are the first government in our nation's history to back the intellect and capability of Australians to deliver this next generation of equipment and support for the ADF. Integral to our approach is building an internationally competitive and innovative industrial base.

In particular we see small and medium enterprises as the incubators powering and strengthening this base. Just last month I launched the government's Defence Policy for Industry Participation, and this policy is all about maximising the opportunities for all competitive Australian businesses and industries, national and local, to participate in our defence industry. Again, the best results come from collaboration: defence industry working together and partnering with the research sector, and last week's Budget embedded these commitments. We have set up defence grant programs to help SMEs build capability and expand export opportunities. Our Centre for Defence Industry Capability is now delivering expert industry advice to no less than 550 Australian SMEs. SMEs, I believe, our universities should also be working closely with. With the appointment last week of small business expert and advocate Kate Carnell as co-chair of the CDIC advisory board, SMEs will have expanded opportunities to participate in strategic partnerships with defence and I hope in time with universities, and they'll have the opportunity to grow their businesses right here in Australia.

And then of course, there's our $90 billion Naval Shipbuilding Program which is something near and dear to many of us here in South Australia, Western Australia and now right across our nation. As part of that there is the Defence Innovation Hub which is backing innovation projects from early concepts, testing to advances prototypes. In particular, what I think will be of likely interest to most of you here, is our Next Generation Technologies Fund. This fund is managed by DST who lead Defence's collaborations with universities. It's DST's job to assemble the best teams of researchers from right across Australia, as well as overseas, to meet Defence's research priorities.

Part of their responsibilities is to better tap into the collective expertise of the academic sector here in Australia. I should note that DST is one of the biggest employers of STEM students in Australia, and growing our STEM capability is obviously fundamental to advancing science nationally. DST really needs your assistance in that. In this regard, we've also released the first Defence Industry Skilling and STEM Strategy which sets out how the government is helping Australia's defence industry to equip their workforce in the coming decades. Now on board as Australia's new Chief Defence Scientist is a renounced STEM champion, research collaborator, and wonderful professor, Tanya Monro, the former DVC of research and innovation at the University of South Australia.

Priorities for the Next Generation Technologies Fund involve complex science and deep technical expertise, work in areas such as quantum technologies, integrated intelligence, enhanced human performance, space and of course cyber. To date, the Next Generation Technologies Fund has provided $130 million to support over 140 research activities. This research has involved 24 universities, fifteen SMEs, three primes and the CSIRO. Just last financial year, eight universities received $11.5 million funding for nine different projects in the previous fund. In total $730 million has been committed to this fund over the next decade. There are important progresses being made in a number of these projects, a great example is the Grand Challenges Program which is addressing counter-improvised threats. This is a high stakes, high impact project. After a strong response from industry and academia, a rigorous evaluation process, eight universities, 12 companies and the CSIRO were have chosen to collaborate in developing prototypes with threat detection and defence mechanism.

As I mentioned, cyber and quantum technologies are high priorities for the fund. Defence and Data61 are now collaborating with thirteen Australian universities to develop new approaches to cyber security, around resilience, situational awareness, decision support and machine-based cyber operations. In the quantum front, the Government has established the Quantum Technologies Research Network. This is all about partnering with industry, academia and government research agencies to explore the opportunities for using quantum systems to solve defence problems. We're also collaborating separately with the Australian National University on quantum research. Now these are just some of the examples of the many that I could cite, but I think they're a great example of what the government is doing and what Defence is now doing with the university sector. I referred earlier to the increasingly complex strategic environment we're operating in. Technological disruption adds risk, not only to long-term defence projects but also to the nation's security. And that is why it is so important we have strong protections against the transfer of critical and sensitive military technology which could pose a threat to the security and to the defence of Australia.

Now, I raise this issue today because I know that there are some in this room who have concerns about the government's response to recommendations as made as a result of Dr Vivienne Thom's review of the Defence Trade Controls Act. This Act is fundamental to the Government's continuing efforts to protect current and future national security, but the government also knows the importance of making sure the future amendments to the Act don't unnecessarily restrict trade, research, and vitally important international collaboration. So with this in mind, I do want to assure you that we have engaged Dr Thom to consult with you and other key stakeholders, to help Defence develop practical approaches to any amendments. The issues are not straightforward and I'm pleased to keep working with you to make sure we get this balance right.

So ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, simply put innovation drives defence capability and research drives and underpins innovation. It sounds easy, but of course we all know it is far from simple. But it is absolutely critical nonetheless. So I say to you, the Group of Eight universities and your broad academic community, the Government and Defence, both need your help to hone our defence capability and to protect our national interests. We need your curiosity, we need your intellect, we need your networks of research and your peer review to stimulate and produce the highest quality advice to solutions to problems, to keep our ADF safe.

My notion of twenty-first century ‘town and gown’ collaboration has to be underpinned, by three things together: a shared confidence in our ingenuity, capability and expertise; a willingness to celebrate and back our own achievements; and finally, the courage to challenge old assumptions and push the boundaries of research and enterprise to new heights. This summit is an incredibly important platform to allow this to happen. As Professor Rathjen noted in his opening comments, we have the people in this room to make it happen. I'm keen in the coming weeks and months to get an update on the discussions and to support you in any way I can to develop this twenty-first century ‘town and gown’. So many thanks, ladies and gentlemen and please know that your contributions and your deliberations here today are greatly valued by the government and I look forward to hearing the outcome. Thank you.