A powerful voice for the sector
Science & Technology Australia is the voice of Australia’s science and technology community.
STA advocates publicly and behind the scenes on behalf of 135 science and technology member organisations, representing a unique grassroots network of more than 115,000 scientists and technologists nationwide.
STA powerfully shapes policy and strengthens support for the nation's science and technology sector and workforce.
Some of our recent policy wins
STA made a powerful case for a new Research Commercialisation Fund to deliver strong returns on investment to the nation. In February 2022, the Government announced a $2.2 billion investment in a research commercialisation fund, venture capital and industry fellowships. STA also confirmed bipartisan support for the legislation.
Science & Technology Australia’s June 2021 Policy Vision urged policymakers to set an ambitious target of making the country a global STEM superpower. This visionary ambition was endorsed in the election pledge made to STA’s membership by the Labor Party at the 2022 Federal Election shortly before it formed Government.
In December 2021, Science & Technology Australia called for all future Australian Research Council rounds to be delivered to a fixed timetable to avoid losing Australia’s science research workforce. In August 2022, Education Minister Jason Clare included fixed grants timetables delivered on schedule in his Statement of Expectations to the ARC.
In 2021, STA worked behind the scenes with the leadership of the nation’s professional scientific societies and engaged with the Australian Research Council to reverse a new ARC rule to ban the citation of pre‑prints in grant applications. After consultation with the sector, the pre‑prints ban was successfully reversed in December 2021.
In October 2021, STA called for Intellectual Property templates for research commercialisation deals to be made voluntary – not mandatory. We advocated for the templates to have crucial flexibility, rather than a rigid one‑size‑fits‑all obligation. In September 2022, the Australian Government issued the new templates for voluntary use.
In a pre-Budget Submission in January 2022, Science & Technology Australia called for the Government’s proposed Patent Box scheme to be extended to include clean energy technologies. The extension of the new Patent Box tax break for Australian companies to manufacture clean energy technologies onshore was confirmed in the March 2022 Budget.