The Astronomy decadal plan 2026–2035 was developed by the Australian Academy of Science’s National Committee for Astronomy.

In September 2024, the review committee invited 13 working groups to engage with their communities and submit white papers on their respective disciplines. These papers serve as a key foundation for shaping strategic priorities and informing the review process. 

The plan is based on the reports of working groups (listed below) comprising more than 250 astronomers, engineers and educators from more than 30 Australian institutions across all states and the ACT. 

To ensure broad representation, a demographics survey was conducted at both the individual and institutional levels. 

This collaborative approach reflects the diverse perspectives and expertise within the Australian astronomy community.

Background papers

Supporting materials for New horizons: A decadal plan for Australian astronomy 2006–2015.

Working group reports

Working group additional material

Decadal plan submissions

Decadal plan commissioned material

Editorial board additional material

Patient and public health records are an extremely valuable resource that have the potential to drive improvements in medicine and healthcare through research and quality improvement programs. 

To reap these benefits, Australia – led by action from federal and state/territory health ministers – needs to build on existing efforts to enable efficient, rigorous, safe and secure use of data for research, while protecting the rights and interests of individuals. 

Priorities for action

• Resolve regulatory barriers limiting timely access to existing population and health data collected at state and national levels.
• Enhance medical and community understanding of and protocols for safe and ethical collection, storage, synthesis and analysis of health data.
• At Commonwealth level, build upon successful state-based linkage programs such as the Public Health Research Network.
• Develop new approaches to accessing and utilising data from novel sources, including the Internet of Things, social media and wearables.
• Ensure continued engagement with and respect for Indigenous data sovereignty.
• Further improve the quality and reliability of health and medical data collections.
• Bolster efforts to generate a data-skilled clinical and research workforce through expanded professional and postgraduate training programs. 

Overview

• The Australian Academy of Science welcomes the interim report of the independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and supports its implementation in full.
• Australia’s monitoring of biodiversity, collection of data, and data curation and standards are inadequate and in pressing need of reform.
• The Academy considers that now is time to establish a new national biodiversity information system, led by an independent agency (similar to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) but focused on biodiversity), to integrate data and tools, support decision-makers, and ensure public confidence.
• The agency would need to have a legislative mandate, curate data, work with states and be empowered to enforce national environmental data standards.
• Such an agency would independently observe, analyse, forecast and warn on the state and trends of Australia’s biodiversity in a similar manner to the services the Bureau of Meteorology provides on Australia’s weather and climate. 

Three elements of reform

1. Establish a national environmental data, information and analysis agency (a ‘Biodiversity BOM’)
2. Implement national data standards
3. Develop nationally consistent, transparent decision-making protocols

Australians have every right to expect a coherent and visionary plan to establish a secure, sustainable and prosperous nation. There are no shortcuts, nor room for complacency, and no scope for inertia.

The Australian Academy of Science outlines science priorities for the 2019 federal election so Australia can earn its future.

The Academy's position is that Australia requires stable, predictable and strategic investment in STEM to reap the benefits that flow from its legitimate and expected role in the development of Australia and its place in the world. 

Earning our future: the platform of the Australian Academy of Science:

• recommends that the mutual obligations of scientists and government be made clear
• provides measures to build national capacity
• keeps community benefit at the heart of all we do.

Election statement

This statement includes 10 recommendations that provide a clear vision for science in Australia.

Watch: Science priorities for the federal election

On the occasion of World Environment Day, the Commonwealth academies call on governments to continue to address the joint challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and to ensure that global economic recovery from the pandemic is environmentally sustainable across the Commonwealth and globally. 

Delivering action on the urgent and interlinked challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable energy provision presents economic, social and environmental opportunities for the whole Commonwealth.

The academies call on Commonwealth Heads of Government to:

• use the opportunities of COP26 and COP15 to coordinate discussions on the joint challenges of climate change and biodiversity and recognise their inherently interlinked nature
• work with the global research community to identify scientific and holistic approaches for addressing climate change and biodiversity without causing unintended damage
• grasp the opportunity of a decarbonised economy and its benefits for people and life on Earth
• ensure a resilient and environmentally sustainable recovery from COVID-19.

Summary of position

Given the risks and costs of not responding to climate change, Australia and the world must build on current commitments to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero. Rapid greenhouse gas emission reductions lessen the scale of the impacts of global warming and can save many lives and livelihoods. This would have significant benefits for human health and species, biodiversity, and present new economic opportunities.

Australia’s involvement in international climate research is necessary to ensure global climate models adequately address conditions in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia is a major contributor to southern hemisphere capacity and capability.

Statement of principle

Achieving net-zero emissions requires an integrated approach across all sectors of the economy and society. The natural sciences, working together with economics, social science, and the humanities, can provide for Australia an evidence-based plan for net-zero that recognises constraints and trade-offs. This is essential to identify the technologies and actions that are ready for deployment now and those which require development and present challenges for further research.

Science is essential in further understanding the drivers of climate change and informing actions to adapt to its impacts, including bushfires, droughts, and floods, and to alleviate such events.

Statement of context

Human activities, specifically the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests, are rapidly changing Earth’s climate. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has risen by more than 50% since the pre-industrial period, to levels not seen on Earth for more than 3 million years. Enhanced radiative forcing associated with the increase in greenhouse gases has led to widespread and growing impacts on natural and human systems worldwide.

The Academy’s position

Climate change impacts are and will continue to be widespread.

Australia is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Recent events – such as the summer bushfires of 2019–20 or severe coral bleaching events in the shallow waters of the Great Barrier Reef – demonstrate some of the consequences of a warming planet for Australia’s people, economy, and environment.

Multiple lines of evidence show that the incidence of extreme weather events is increasing as the planet warms. Such events are a natural feature of the climate system, but there is strong evidence that many of them, such as land heatwaves, bushfires, storms, and coastal flooding, have become more frequent and intense in recent times.

These extremes and their associated risks will escalate further as global temperatures continue to rise and our capacity to respond becomes compromised as the frequency increases.

Well designed, planned, and managed climate mitigation and adaptation solutions offer synergies with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. These go beyond climate action and include ensuring food and water security, maintaining health, protecting life on land and below water, reducing poverty and inequality, and importantly, ensuring access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for all, where the cost of carbon is recognised.

To achieve these aims, social understanding and transformation are crucial and must work hand in hand with developments in technology. Reducing and mitigating climate change will require cross-sectoral solutions built on integrated Earth system thinking, that includes the impact of human population trends, inequality, and socioeconomic inequity. 

The Academy:

1. declares that human activities, specifically the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests, are rapidly changing Earth’s climate
2. supports strategies to move rapidly towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and to scale up the development and implementation of next-generation low to zero greenhouse gas technologies; and to meet the challenges of extreme events that are increasing in intensity, frequency, and scale
3. calls for continued improvement in our understanding of global climate change and climate impacts, including tipping points, as well as the compounding effects of multiple stressors at global warming of 2°C or more; and calls to further improve our understanding of the impacts of climate change on domains including human health, food production, water security, marine ecosystems, and coastlines
4. maintains that policies to address the impacts of climate change must be informed by the best available scientific evidence, monitoring and evaluation.

Australia has some of the largest sphere of climate science operations in the Southern Hemisphere in a range of domains. Australia’s involvement in international climate research is necessary to ensure global climate models adequately address the climate in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Statement of authorisation

This position paper was subject to expert review by the Australian Academy of Science and was endorsed by the Academy Council at its meeting of 7 October 2021.

Other publications

Submissions

Statements and publications

Other relevant links

Summary of position

The Australian Academy of Science maintains that addressing the decline in natural biodiversity is a pressing national and international imperative, requiring urgent action to reverse this trend. Australia should lead international efforts to give biodiversity a higher priority in global policy choices and actions, account for the real impact that biodiversity loss has on human systems, including the economy,¹ and reform biodiversity conservation domestically.

Statement of principle

The Australian Academy of Science maintains that most pressing issues for humanity are inextricably linked to global biodiversity, including Australia’s megadiverse biome.

Understanding the richness of the living Earth, present and past, and ensuring its future is the task of a range of sciences. Maintaining and conserving global biodiversity requires a systems approach involving all sectors of society and scientific disciplines.

Statement of context

Australia is one of the only industrialised countries classified as biologically megadiverse. It has a globally unusually high number of species of animals, plants, and other organisms. Australia also has one of the highest documented rates of recent species extinction in the world and accounts for 35% of the world’s known and historically recorded mammal extinctions.² Globally, the potentially irreversible change to ecosystem structure, composition and function imperil biodiversity, human health and wellbeing and the economy.³ Seventy per cent of Australia's species remain undiscovered, unidentified, unnamed, and unaccounted for.⁴ Australia’s natural environment is in an overall state of decline and is under increasing threat.

The Academy’s position

Biodiversity is crucial for human wellbeing and survival. Living organisms provide all foods, most medicines, many industrial products, and critical ecosystem services. Biodiversity is also integral to cultural, psychological, and artistic wellbeing. During the modern era, the world's biodiversity has diminished substantially, driven by the growth of the global human population, the increased exploitation of natural resources, and the wide dispersal of pests and diseases driven by globalisation.

Growth in global population, production, consumption, and trade has placed ongoing stresses on biodiversity and the ecosystems that sustain us. Pressure on environmental systems and landscapes through land clearing, wildlife trade and increased livestock production in almost every case leads to decreased environmental resilience, displacement of species and substantial modification of natural habitats. As well as having deleterious effects on biodiversity, these changes can lead to increased and deleterious impacts from biodiversity on humans, as when increased connectivity between pathogens and human populations causes zoonotic disease outbreaks (such as the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and the Zika and Ebola viruses).⁵

The current global rate of species extinction is estimated to be around 100–1,000 times higher than background rates.⁶ Pressures on ecosystems are stronger than ever before, and even resilient ecosystems are experiencing widespread and rapid collapse. Climate change and increasing extreme weather are adding to longstanding pressures of environmental exploitation and habitat loss. Extinction of species reduces the total diversity of life on the planet and compromises ecosystems functioning at the very time when ecosystem function is under pressure from many directions.

The devastating 2019/2020 bushfires saw a significant loss of biodiversity and habitats across large parts of eastern Australia. When the reassessment of affected species is complete, the total number of species listed as threatened in Australia is likely to increase.⁷ Marine heatwaves have had parallel impact on marine ecosystems including our iconic Great Barrier Reef. Preventing the decline of wild species requires complex solutions.

Transformational change to halt and reverse biodiversity loss will require cross-sectoral solutions built on integrated Earth system thinking, including consideration of the impact of human population trends, inequality, and socio-economic inequity. Biodiversity and its destruction are inextricably linked to multiple Earth system interactions that couple human, economic and social activities to the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. While this complexity makes tackling biodiversity loss challenging, it also provides opportunities for solutions.

Science-based opportunities include improving the documentation of Australia’s biodiversity; advancing sustainable agriculture, forestry and fishing; protecting and restoring natural habitats; addressing climate change; understanding the drivers and limits of consumption, including population size; and reinventing production systems.

Currently, Australia is failing to halt, slow or reverse biodiversity loss and species decline. Current legislative and regulatory instruments are not fit to deal with the conservation of known threatened species, let alone the many undiscovered species in Australia.⁸ To know whether attempts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss are effective, national and international monitoring networks need to be strengthened; the scientific infrastructure needed to monitor, understand and manage biodiversity need to be enhanced; and scientific evaluation of the drivers of biodiversity loss must continue.

There are clear opportunities for national and international cooperation to support a coherent national and global network for biodiversity documentation and observation, data management, forecasting and reporting. There are also opportunities for enhanced economic growth from, rather than at the cost of, biodiversity. The risks of inaction are very high – few risks are more important than a compromised and non-functional environment and planet.

The Academy:

1. supports transformational change across technological, political, cultural, economic and social domains – locally, regionally and globally – to prevent and reverse biodiversity loss in the next decade
2. declares that biodiversity loss is a global problem that requires coordinated action between countries. Australia should lead international efforts to give biodiversity a higher priority in global policy choices and actions
3. calls for new approaches to documenting, valuing, and accounting for biodiversity so that communities and economies can couple economic growth with the long-term sustainability of the biosphere
4. supports reform of biodiversity conservation and legislation.

Statement of authorisation

This position paper was subject to expert review by the Australian Academy of Science and authorised by the Academy Council at its meeting of 7 October 2021.

Relevant submissions

Other publications

Other relevant links

References

1. Dasgupta, P. The economics of biodiversity: the Dasgupta review. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/962785/The_Economics_of_Biodiversity_The_Dasgupta_Review_Full_Report.pdf (2021) doi:10.2458/jpe.2289.
2. Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Threatened species strategy 2021–2031. (2021).
3. Bergstrom, D. M. et al. Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic. Glob. Chang. Biol. 27, 1692–1703 (2021).
4. The Australian Academy of Science. Discovering biodiversity. A decadal plan for taxonomy and biosystematics in Australia and New Zealand 2018–2027. (2018).
5. Tollefson, J. Why deforestation and extinctions make pandemics more likely. Nature vol. 584 175–176 (2020).
6. Johnson, C. Past and future decline and extinction of species | Royal Society. (2021).
7. Ward, M. et al. Impact of 2019–2020 mega-fires on Australian fauna habitat. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 1321–1326 (2020).
8. Samuel, G. Independent review of the EPBC Act – Interim report. (2020).

Australia’s future economic prosperity and social wellbeing depend above all else on improvements in performance in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This statement outlines three priorities, accompanied by 16 recommendations, to put science and technology at the heart of social and economic policy.

Priorities

1. Priority one: A society with the understanding and skills to use and apply STEM in their lives and careers through world-class science and mathematics education for every student in every school and every tertiary institution.
2. Priority two: The most intellectually and experimentally able scientists solving Australia’s current and future challenges by dismantling systemic barriers that prevent many women and diverse groups from achieving their full potential in STEM.
3. Priority three: A strong, secure and globally connected research and innovation capability.

The development and dissemination of scientific knowledge is at the heart of the human condition. The internet has brought about profound changes in how we organise and disseminate academic and scientific knowledge. As the Academy’s mission is to promote scientific excellence and disseminate scientific knowledge, the Academy supports recent efforts towards disseminating research through open access publishing.

Researchers now benefit from unprecedented and instant access to research findings via the internet, enabling them to quickly build on past research to develop new scientific knowledge. Most research is published in subscription publications, so people outside of the higher education sector, such as those working in public service, within the voluntary sector, in business, researchers in developing countries and the wider community, have not yet been able to take advantage of this improved access.

The Academy believes that the advancement of scientific knowledge is best served through the free, open and online distribution of high-quality peer-reviewed research, and supports recent efforts that have sought to ensure publicly funded research is freely available and without restriction. Managing the transition to open access publishing will be complicated, as existing publication arrangements are the product of many models, developed in many countries over many years. In transitioning to different models of publishing it is vital that high-quality peer review and the on-going publication of scientific knowledge should not be impeded.

However, the Academy believes that despite the many challenges that need to be overcome, the benefits of research being made freely available are considerable and worth pursuing. The transition to an open access publishing environment will require government, funding councils, research councils, learned societies, universities, researchers, librarians and publishers to work together to develop a sustainable, transparent, cost-effective and high-quality open access publishing environment.

General principles

Following are general principles offered by the Australian Academy of Science to inform consideration about the transition to open access publishing.

1. The government, other researchers, and the wider community should not have to pay to access the research findings of publicly funded research.
2. Making the findings of publicly funded research freely available through open access publishing should be encouraged.
3. Publicly funded research findings should be disseminated as broadly as possible, and as soon as possible after their publication.
4. Publishing, financial, copyright and other barriers that sometimes prevent researchers from making their research freely available through open access publishing should not inhibit and/or delay the publication of research findings.
5. A flexible and planned approach from funding providers will be necessary to help researchers transition to an open access publishing environment.
6. The decision on where to publish work should always rest with researchers who should develop a publication strategy cooperatively with those responsible for managing publication expenditure budgets.
7. The quality and integrity of scholarly publishing must be maintained through the continued use of the peer review process.