Tag Archives: Minister for Innovation Industry Science and Research

Amid controversies, Australian government spends big bucks on Australian Institute for Nanoscience

Kim Carr, Australia’s Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, delivered  an extraordinary speech, by Canadian standard (ours tend to remarkable blandness), at the sod-turning event for the new Australian Institute for Nanoscience (AIN) due to open in May 2015. Before getting to the speech, here’s a bit more about the event from a July 24, 2013 news item on Global Times,

Australian government will deliver a fund for the new Australian Institute for Nanoscience ( AIN) which will open in May 2015 to boost its research of nanotechnology, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr confirmed in a statement after breaking the ground for the new facility at the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

The AIN project is a major new building combining research laboratories with teaching facilities to drive cross-disciplinary collaboration to develop nanomaterials and devices.

The July 24, 2013 Australian government media release about the AIN sod-turning provides more details about the government’s investment in the institute and its backing of nanoscience/nanotechnology research,

Senator Kim Carr said the Australian Government’s $40 million contribution, through the Education Investment Fund, to assist in the facility’s construction backs in Labor’s commitment to giving our researchers the tools they need to pursue world-leading work.

“Nanotechnology is a transformative force for manufacturing and is predicted to be worth $US3 trillion globally by 2020. Australia needs to stake a claim to our slice of that pie now, by building well-researched prototypes for the market. AIN will help make that happen and keep Australian research internationally competitive.”

Senator Carr said AIN will increase our national research capability by bringing together world-class nanoscience researchers across three main areas:

  • New medical diagnostics and therapies combining quantum technology with imaging and drug delivery and solutions such as a fully implantable bionic eye;
  • Faster, more secure and more efficient communications based on photonics and quantum science technologies; and
  • Revolutionary optical instrumentation to explore the frontiers of our universe, along with faster data processing technologies for the SKA.

I’m not sure where Carr got the “… worth $US3 trillion globally by 2020” number for nanotechnology’s impact on the global economy. More interesting to me, are these comments from Carr’s speech (you can find the entire speech here),

It is a great pleasure to share in the progress of the Australian Institute for Nanoscience here at Sydney University.

Three years have passed since I announced the funding for this facility:

$40 million from the Federal Government;

backed by $71 million from the university;

and a further $20 million from other sources, including the New South Wales government, the Australian National Fabrication Facility; the ARC’s CUDOS; the Australian Astronomical Observatory and Bandwidth Foundry International.

It was one of the many projects made possible by the Education Investment Fund – which, over three rounds, secured a total of $3.5 billion in new research infrastructure for a federal contribution of $1.5 billion.

This is an impressive return on investment.

At that time, this was the sort of research guaranteed to bring out the anti-science crowd.

There were beat-ups in the press, demonstrations in universities, and scare campaigns run on worksites. [emphasis mine]

It was as if the Enlightenment had never happened. It was as if nanoscience was some kind of global conspiracy to kill us all with sunscreen. [emphasis mine]

But I saw this project differently. And I put my views on the record at the time this investment was announced.

As I said back then:

“I don’t begin by saying “this is too strange” or “this is too hard”. I don’t begin by saying “no”.

I begin by asking, “what’s in it for Australia?” – “what’s in it for the people we serve?” – and “how can we make this work?”

The speech continues with a very optimistic view of all the economic benefits to be derived from an investment in nanoscience/nanotechnology.

Given the extreme lack of interest in Canada and its very odd (or perhaps it’s a harbinger of the future?) almost unknown National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT), which exists on a NINT University of Alberta website and on a NINT National Research Council website, the “beat-ups in the press, etc.” provide a fascinating and contrasting socio-cultural perspective. The difference is perhaps due to a very active, both in Australia and internationally, Friends of the Earth group.

Friends of the Earth Australia campaigned long (years) and hard against nanosunscreens in a leadup to some rather disturbing survey findings in 2012 (my Feb. 9, 2012 posting) where some 13% of Australians, first reported as 17%,  didn’t use any sunscreens whatsoever, due to their fear of ‘nanosunscreens’.

Kim Carr has been mentioned here before in an Aug. 26, 2011 posting which highlighted a study showing  Australians held positive (?) attitudes towards nanotechnology and those attitudes had gotten more positive over time. My guess, not having looked at the study, is that the study focussed on areas where people usually express positive attitudes (e. g. better health care with less invasive medical procedures) and not on environmental issues (e.g. nanosilver in your clothing washing off and ending up in the water supply).

I do love how elected officials, the world over, pick and choose their ‘facts’.