World leaders in Defence science will come together to share insights at the Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research Summit in September.
The summit, ADSTAR, will be held in Canberra from 17 to 19 September and is the biennial event’s second iteration.
Chief Defence Scientist, Prof Tanya Monro, says ADSTAR 2024 is well-timed.
“Australia’s Defence innovation ecosystem is on the cusp of a new phase of growth,” Prof Monro says. “Much has been achieved… but significant gains are still ahead. Australian universities have latent capacity to do more research in the Defence sector, and Defence has rising demand for the talents of outstanding Australian researchers.”
ADSTAR will host the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator’s inaugural pitch day with the theme ‘innovative asymmetric advantage’.
Designed so that those with a great idea can explain their innovative solutions to Defence, it is hoped that the pitch day will showcase technology that was previously unknown or even highlight problems that haven’t been considered, the solutions to which could provide an asymmetric capability.
Post pitches, Defence may identify innovations that can be further co-developed together with Industry through to direct acquisition, in order to fast-track development and deployment of innovative defence technologies.
The pitch day is an initiative of the Defence Industry Development Strategy to ensure Defence remains aware of industry innovation and technology, to provide the Australian Defence Force (ADF) with a capability edge.
Prof Monro says ASCA will create more opportunities for university and industry researchers to participate in Australian or trilateral research projects in coming years.
“This is an exciting time for Defence research. Australian research is highly regarded by our international allies. We’re seeing deeper research partnerships form between AUKUS partners, and greater recognition of the potential for Defence research collaborations.”
Defence’s approach to innovation is one that aims to unite and harness the national science and technology enterprise to create new relationships and strengthen existing partnerships across government, industry and academia.
“ADSTAR is one way Defence Science and Technology Group is responding to this need, with a vision to drive capability development and acquisition pathways to align and enable the national innovation ecosystem,” Prof Monro says.
“It is also a great opportunity to engage with ASCA and learn more about how we are taking Defence further, faster by bringing essential capabilities to our armed forces at speed.”
The ADSTAR 2024 theme is Accelerating the delivery of asymmetric Defence capabilities.
“Asymmetry must be part of our advantage, and we need the technology, equipment and expertise that delivers this advantage quickly. Working together, our scientists shoulder to shoulder with the ADF, industry, and academia, is how we’ll maintain a strategic advantage, and how we’ll become more resilient than ever before.”
ADSTAR will feature a plenary of world leading Defence Science presenters, plus a comprehensive technical program in six themes aligned to the IS&T priorities outlined in the Defence Strategic Review:
- Trusted autonomy
- Quantum technology
- Information warfare
- Long-range fires
- Hypersonics, and
- Directed energy
In 2022, more than 1700 delegates from defence industry, science and technology enterprise, and academia joined Defence colleagues for the first ADSTAR Summit.
“We’re excited to build on that and foster a space which builds true collaboration across the best Australian and international scientific and technical talent. We created ADSTAR to further accelerate the type of collaboration our strategic environment demands.”
