In a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), Kim Carr warns that Australia cannot build future prosperity on population growth, property and resource extraction alone – it must invest seriously in the scientific capability that drives innovation.

Australia is entering what Treasurer Jim Chalmers has described as a defining decade. The decisions we make now will shape our living standards, economic resilience and intergenerational prosperity for decades to come.

The recent strategic examination of research and development, Ambitious Australia, argues that Australia can no longer rely upon a neo-liberal economic model. Dependence on population growth, resource extraction and property expansion will not by themselves deliver the productivity, complexity and resilience needed for future prosperity.

Future growth will increasingly depend upon knowledge, innovation and technological capability. The SERD report reminds us that, since 1945, around three-quarters of global economic growth has been driven by technological advances.

Since 1990 most technological advances have emerged from fundamental scientific discovery. It is this insight that goes to the heart of why Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy matters.

NCRIS is not simply a peripheral research program. It is a foundational investment that allows Australia to transform scientific knowledge into economic capability, industrial strength and social progress.

For 20 years it has quietly built the infrastructure that supports medical discoveries, advanced manufacturing, agricultural innovation, environmental management, digital technologies and emerging industries.

The SERD report makes another important point. Australia spends around $15 billion a year on the innovation system, yet investment remains fragmented across multiple programs and portfolios. Nor has Australia’s research budget kept pace with inflation. Funding is often spread too thinly and the system lacks sufficient general coordination and long-term direction.

NCRIS stands out precisely because it does the opposite. It provides a nationally coordinated framework........

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