Leading scientists say bringing together the space industry under a strategic coordination framework must be the first order of business upon the establishment of a home-grown space agency.

The conclusion forms part of the Australian Academy of Science’s Vision for space science and technology in Australia, launched today at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC2017) in Adelaide.

The vision outlines a future—by 2027 or sooner—in which Australia will have a vibrant space sector and space industry, underpinned by a national space agency. 

A national framework, advised by an expert panel, would provide coordination, priority setting, and a degree of strategic funding, to assist the Australian space sector to mature and flourish.

The vision statement suggests priorities for the Australian space sector could include leading the development of CubeSats as a national capability, understanding and managing the impacts of space weather and tracking and managing space junk.

Read the Vision for space science and technology in Australia

Read the Academy's media release

Leading scientists say bringing together the space industry under a strategic coordination framework must be the first order of business upon the establishment of a home-grown space agency.

The conclusion forms part of the Australian Academy of Science’s Vision for Space Science and Technology in Australia, launched today at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC2017) in Adelaide.

Professor Fred Menk, Chair of the Academy’s National Committee for Space and Radio Science, which compiled the vision statement, said much of the recent public discussion has focused on whether Australia should have a space agency.

“We certainly envisage a future—by 2027 or sooner—in which Australia will have a vibrant space sector and space industry, underpinned by a national space agency. Establishing a coordination framework for space science and technology in Australia must be a first order priority for our space agency,” Professor Menk said.

“Australia has already developed many of the ingredients required to reap the benefits of a space industry—indeed, some areas are excelling. Substantial progress has also already been made within and between some organisations including the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia and the Department of Defence.”

“However, these contributors, including the smaller actors and organisations, do not yet form a cohesive and unified sector that is able to provide the full depth and breadth of rigour necessary to underpin operational sovereign space capabilities. They must be nurtured and grown in strategically prioritised and assisted ways. A key missing ingredient is a national space coordination framework,” Professor Menk said.

Professor Menk said Australia’s space industry is currently fragmented and comparatively small relative to opportunity.

“This is exposing scientific and technical gaps that are inconsistent with our sovereign interests,” Professor Menk said.

The vision statement cites the Chinese-based International Space Weather Meridian Circle Program, as an example. The program is proposing to establish space-based weather measurement instruments along the 120E/60W meridian, which passes through Australia and Antarctica, in order to provide a global picture of unfolding space weather events.

“The lack of a national coordination framework for space weather activities impacts on Australia’s engagement with and capacity to respond to strategic programs such as this one,” Professor Menk said.

“A national framework, advised by an expert panel, would provide coordination, priority setting, and a degree of strategic funding, to assist the Australian space sector to mature and flourish.

“A comprehensive earth systems science approach to the observation of the Australian continent, the Southern Ocean and the Southern Hemisphere will enable Australia to deliver good science policy and practice in a region where we are regarded as the custodians,” Professor Menk said.

The vision statement suggests priorities for the Australian space sector could include leading the development of CubeSats as a national capability, understanding and managing the impacts of space weather and tracking and managing space junk.

“With the right policy support Australia can mobilise the sector to create a significant space industry, based on innovative and niche products, in a relatively short time,” Professor Menk said.

The Australian Academy of Science has welcomed the bipartisan approach to establish an Australian space agency and says a national coordination framework must be a first order priority for the agency.

The framework would provide priority setting and strategic funding and enable Australia’s space industry sector to mature and flourish.

The lack of a national coordination framework impacts on Australia’s engagement with and capacity to respond to initiatives such as the Chinese-based International Space Weather Meridian Circle Program. The program is proposing to establish space-based weather measurement instruments along the 120E/60W meridian, which passes through Australia and Antarctica, in order to provide a global picture of unfolding space weather events.

With the right policy support and framework in place, Australia can mobilise the sector to create a significant space industry, based on innovative and niche products, in a relatively short time

Priorities for the Australian space sector could include leading the development of CubeSats as a national capability, understanding and managing the impacts of space weather and tracking and managing space junk.

The Academy’s Vision for Space and Technology in Australia, being launched on 27 September at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, lays out the path to success for an Australian space agency.

The Australian Academy of Science’s innovative approach to primary school science education has been recognised with a win at the Australian Publishers Association (APA)‘s 2017 Educational Publishing Awards.

The winners were announced at a ceremony at the Arts Centre in Melbourne last night.

The Academy’s Primary Connections team took out the award category Primary: Student Resource—Arts/Science/Humanities/Social Sciences/Technologies/Health and Physical Education/Languages for their Student Science Journals (Years 3 and 4).

In awarding the prize, the judging panel said ‘the student science journals are functional and accessible, incorporating hands-on activities and a collaborative approach, allowing students to take ownership of their work. They are particularly helpful in building teachers’ confidence and competence in teaching science’.

Primary Connections was also highly commended in the Primary Teacher Resource category for its Among the Gum Trees curriculum pack, which has sparked students’ interest in learning about gum trees.

The Primary Connections: Linking science with literacy program is an approach to teaching and learning which aims to improve students’ learning outcomes by building teachers’ confidence and competence for teaching science

More information about Primary Connections.

Prominent international scientists  Dr Christina Kellogg, Professor Stefanie Dimmeler and Dr Graham Nugent have been awarded Australian Academy of Science Travelling Fellowships. The Fellowships foster the international exchange of scientific ideas and support lectures for the general public.

Professor Stefanie Dimmeler, a cell biologist based at Goethe University in Germany, has been awarded the Academy’s 2018 Selby Fellowship. Her research is focused on understanding the basic mechanisms underlying cardiovascular disease and vessel growth.

The Fellowship will see Professor Dimmeler based at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney. From there she will present lectures in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

Dr Christina Kellogg, a research microbiologist with the United States Geological Survey, has been awarded the 2018 Rudi Lemberg Travelling Fellowship.

Dr Kellogg studies microorganisms within deep water coral ecosystems. As part of her Fellowship she plans to compare US deep sea coral samples with those found on the Great Barrier Reef to better understand bacterial organisms on coral reefs.

Dr Kellogg will work with coral reef experts at James Cook University, The Australian Institute of Marine Science, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and present lectures in Townsville, Brisbane and potentially also in either Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne.

Dr Graham Nugent, a wildlife ecologist with Landcare Research in New Zealand, has been awarded the 2018 Graeme Caughley Fellowship. His research is focused on the management, control, and eradication of introduced mammals in New Zealand, particularly deer, pigs, brush tail possums and rats.

Dr Nugent will travel to Canada, Mexico, Spain and the USA to collaborate on wildlife management and ecology in the fields of large scale mammal pest disease surveillance and eradication, primarily in relation to bovine tuberculosis.

Australian-led collaborative projects to help address the Asia–Pacific affordable housing crisis, tackle hepatitis B and monitor the impact of coastal climate changes are amongst five research organisations to receive $897,210 collectively in Australian Government funding today.

The funding is provided under the first round of the $3.2 million Regional Collaborations Programme, which is administered by the Australian Academy of Science and is part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

The grants will support Australian researchers and businesses who are collaborating with partners in our immediate region to develop innovative solutions to shared challenges.

The projects will build strong regional partnerships across a wide range of fields including agricultural and environmental sciences, transport and construction, health, manufacturing and materials sciences.

The biggest grant, $379,210 over three years, goes to Academy Fellow Alan Cowman FAA FRS and his team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Together with partners in Indonesia and Japan they will use the grant to understand mechanisms leading to immunity and resistance to malaria and severe dengue fever.

Other grants include collaborative projects between:

• the University of Melbourne, and partners in Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and China to establish an Asia–Pacific research network on sustainable materials and prefabricated systems to address the housing crisis in the region through resilient affordable housing ($210,000 over two years).
• the University of South Australia, and partners in New Zealand and Japan to overcome barriers to the mass production of biomedical devices to promote improved health care outcomes for ageing populations ($180,000 over three years).
• the University of Melbourne, together with partners in China, Singapore, USA, Canada and France to establish an international coalition to support the discovery of a safe, affordable, scalable and effective cure for hepatitis B ($83,000 over 15 months).
• the University of Wollongong, and partners in Indonesia and the United Kingdom to develop regional monitoring of coastal climate change impacts using remote sensing technologies ($45,000 over three years).

The Regional Collaborations Programme is designed to build strong linkages between Australian researchers and businesses and their Asia–Pacific regional counterparts by supporting multi‑partner science, research and innovation collaboration activities that address issues of significance to our nation and the region.

The programme also supports greater mobility among our technical and research workforce, and builds Australia’s research capability by linking to global science and research networks and infrastructure.

More information on the Regional Collaborations Programme

Australian Academy of Science Fellow Professor Stephen Powles has won the American Chemical Society International Award for Research in Agrochemicals.

Professor Powles, an internationally recognised authority on herbicide resistance in plants, is the first Australian to win the award. It is given to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of agrochemicals at the international level, with their vision and sustained contribution having opened new horizons for investigators in their field and beyond.

Director of Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative at the University of Western Australia’s School of Agriculture and Environment, Professor Powles was recognised for his long-standing research contribution to identifying the role of cytochrome P450 enzymes in endowing herbicide resistance in plants.

Professor Powles is one of the world’s most highly cited agricultural scientists and is widely regarded as a foremost expert in herbicide resistance in plants. Professor Powles and his team have more than 250 research papers published on herbicide resistance. 

Professor Powles was nominated for the award by Dr Todd Gaines of Colorado State University. Dr Gaines is a former postdoctoral student of Professor Powles who spent three years as a researcher at UWA before returning to the US.

Professor Powles will receive the award at a special symposium organised in his honour at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston in August 2018.

This is an amended version of a story originally published by the University of Western Australia

A meeting hosted by the Australian Academy of Science this week, through its Future Earth Australia initiative, has reinforced the importance of close collaboration across Australia’s research sector both domestically and internationally.

The Academy hosted a meeting of the Belmont Forum, an international partnership that brings together key international funding agencies and the International Council of Science.

The Forum's core focus is to mobilise the funding of environmental change research and accelerate its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability.

Australia is currently a member of the Forum, with this meeting exploring how its commitment could be increased and focused. The meeting was chaired by Academy Fellow Professor Ian Chubb, who is Chair of the Future Earth Australia Advisory Council.

The meeting heard from the Forum’s Dr Maria Uhle (co-chair) and Dr Erika Key (Executive Director) about the work and influence of the group in encouraging collaborative research and communication efforts across borders to address common country, regional and international needs.

They emphasised the critical role that stakeholders play not only in the identification of issues but also in the co-design of the solutions. Other speakers included Professor Andrew Holmes, President, Australian Academy of Science; Dr Paul Bertsch, Acting Director Land and Water, CSIRO who currently manages Australia’s Belmont Forum relationship; and Professor Stephen Dover, Chair of the Future Earth Australia Steering Committee. 

Participants included members of the learned academies, representatives of federal government departments and research funding agencies, and universities and research institutes.

Participants agreed that Australia should continue to extend its involvement in the Belmont Forum. The next step is to further explore and finalise the Australian representation on the Belmont Forum. 

Read the communique

PhD student Mortaza Rezae from Curtin University is the winner of the second Australian Falling Walls Lab, hosted by the Australian Academy of Science.

In a surprise announcement, second placed competitor Australian National University’s Dr Vini Gautam, will join Mr Rezae to represent Australia at the Falling Walls Lab finale in Berlin on 8 November.

Mehdi Saeidi from the Auckland University of Technology placed third in the competition.

Mehdi Saeidi and his team are developing an implant to remove excessive load from the knee and to slow the progress of osteoarthritis, which effects millions of people worldwide. The implant aims to reduce the likelihood of a total knee replacement.

25 Australasian researchers and innovators gathered today at the Shine Dome in Canberra to present their work in three minutes on subjects including climate change impacts, quantum computing technology and preventing brain injury in pre-term babies.

Inspired to improve the quality his younger brother’s life, who was diagnosed with autism, Mortaza Rezae is working on a mobile application to enable independent public transport access for people with autism.

‘Public transport is a minefield of anxiety, distress and sensory overload for people with autism spectrum disorder. My research focuses on enhancing transport accessibly for people with autism to enable them to engage in community and social activities and employment.’

Currently there are no treatments to repair brain damage. Dr Vini Gautam is hoping her technique, using nano-scale scaffolds inserted into the brain as implants, can repair this damage by guiding the neurons to form connections with each other.

The Falling Walls Lab, which began in 2011, provides ‘emerging talents, entrepreneurs and innovators a stage to pitch their research work, initiatives or business models to their peers and a distinguished jury from academia and business’. Labs have taken place in 50 countries.

The Falling Walls Lab Australia is organised by the Australian Academy of Science, in association with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Australia and the Australian National University.

More information on the international Falling Walls event

Australian and British neurobiologist Professor Geoffrey Burnstock has been awarded the Australian Academy of Science’s Macfarlane Burnet Medal in recognition of his outstanding scientific research in the biological sciences.

Professor Burnstock, who was elected as a Fellow of the Academy 1971, is internationally recognised for the discovery of purinergic neurotransmission (i.e. ATP as an extracellular signalling molecule), a novel signalling system between cells that is of central importance for many biological processes.

His 1972 discovery, and later 1976 commentary in Neuroscience on cotransmission*, challenged established concepts of the biology of cell messengers and neurotransmission. The purinergic concept was not initially accepted by the scientific community, and it took twenty years for Professor Burnstock to prove his hypothesis.

More recently, Professor Burnstock has focused on the pathophysiology and therapeutic potential of purinergic signalling. This research has had an impact on the understanding of pain mechanisms, osteoporosis, chronic cough, hypertension, cancer, bladder, kidney and neurodegenerative diseases.

One drug to result from Professor Burnstock’s research is clopidogrel, which is used to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke in high risk patients. Global sales are in the billions of dollars.

Emeritus Professor Derek Denton from the University of Melbourne, who nominated Professor Burnstock for the award, says he has been, and continues to be an inspiration for many.

“His vision and creativity have enabled and driven the research of a very large number of laboratories around the world,” Emeritus Professor Denton said.

“He has personally supervised over 100 PhD and MD students and over 60 post-doctoral fellows and since his first report published in 1957 in the journal Nature, he has published more than 1500 papers, which have been cited more than 101,000 times.”

The 88 year-old is returning to Australia later this year to continue his scientific investigations after a 42-year career at University College London. Between 1959 and 1975, Professor Burnstock also worked at the University of Melbourne.

“It is a particular pleasure on my return to live in Melbourne to have been honoured in this way,” Professor Burnstock said.

Professor Burnstock is known as the ‘smooth muscle man’ due to his early research which focused on the biology of smooth muscle. In 1957 he developed a new method for recording the electrophysiology of smooth muscle cells.

Smooth muscle refers to a muscle of the human body that is part of an involuntary muscle group. They can be found in the walls of the stomach and blood vessels, intestines, bladder, veins, and prostate, among other places.

Professor Burnstock will deliver a lecture on his lifetime’s work at the Australian Academy of Science’s Science at the Shine Dome in May 2018. More information about Professor Burnstock.

The Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture is named after Nobel Laureate and virologist Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet. Past winners include Nobel Laureate Barry Marshall, former Academy president and molecular biologist Suzanne Cory, Sir Gustav Nossal and Emeritus Professor Derek Denton.

* The concept of cotransmission, in contrast to the generally held belief that one nerve only utilised one neurotransmitter, was formulated in a Commentary in Neuroscience in 1976. Initially, ATP was shown to be a cotransmitter with noradrenaline in sympathetic nerves, but it is now known that ATP is a cotransmitter with classical transmitters in most, if not all, nerves in both the peripheral and central nervous systems.