Page 66 - Australian Defence Magazine September 2019

FROM THE SOURCE
PROF TANYA MONRO
KATHERINE ZIESING | CANBERRA
Taking on the Chief Defence Scientist role earlier this year, Professor Tanya Monro is looking to build on the solid foundation of her predecessors while also ‘doing a smaller number of larger things’. ADM spoke with Professor Monro about the future of DST Group under her leadership.
Professor Tanya Monro
and must only be done by government, i.e. within DST. But we also have a role in har- nessing the broader research ecosystem in Australia and supporting the industry in Australia to make sure that we can harness that much greater pool of ideas and intellec- tual capacity for the needs of Defence. I’d say it’s an evolution rather than a revolution but it’s one with quite a fast pace to it.
ADM: How is DST working with other research and innovation programs like Plan Jericho or Army Innovation Day? MONRO: The way we work with initia- tives like Jericho and the Army Innovation Day is through really tight partnership within the One Defence ethos to make sure that our academic partners around the country are engaged, and that colleagues across ADF work with the best people for the fields that they’re looking to work in. So we’re key to of our ADF colleagues’ outreach into academia. Within Defence, DST are the people who speak the language of research and know what good looks like. We also play a critical role in helping our academic colleagues know how to work with Defence to make sure their work has a pathway to impact.
ADM: Is there a formal role with DST with large shipbuilding programs like the Future Submarine and the Future Frigate?
MONRO: Yes, it takes a couple of forms. All of our really big programs have science and technology project activities that travel alongside them. So as technology matures, we’re able to insert at appropriate points ev- erything from new software systems to new materials to new ways of using new plat- forms. A critical role we play is in the techni- cal risk validation process as we go through this really major financial commitment.
What I’m really most pleased about with these really big programs is that we no lon- ger just focus on getting the technology in that’s absolutely mature and combat ready, but that we actually have a portfolio of sci- ence and technology associated with the big programs. So as well as solving the prob- lems we know about today we’ve also got a pathway of future developments that will go onto all ships and boats further down the line too. That we can make sure that they’ve got the best and latest technology at the time they’re being manufactured. It’s an embedded approach.
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Chief Defence Scientist
Chief Defence Scientist
Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Innovation, University of South Australia
ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Nanoscale Bio Photonics
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Engineering Science and Technology
Director of the Institute for Photonics & Advanced Sensing
Inaugural Director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing
Chair of Photonics and the Director of the DSTO Centre of Expertise in Photonics
Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Southampton UK
Researcher University of Southampton, UK
ADM: DST Group has traditionally been the S&T advice partner for Defence across its many organisational iterations. Is this still the core business and if [not], how has the delivery model changed? MONRO: That’s something I’ve thought quite deeply about coming into the role and in forming my own view of where we sit and where we need to go. There’s no ques- tion that our core role is still to be Defence’s trusted science and technology adviser and solutions provider. However, there are trends that we’re seeing already emerge and that I think will accelerate. There’s a clear appetite in the ADF; that stems from the realisation that science and technology is transforming their game. That future wars won’t look like previous wars and that the advantage that we’ll have nationally will come from science and technology.
And while the history of defence is scat- tered with wonderful examples of S&T pro- tecting the war fighter, there’s a realisation that I think has never been there before that the pace of change is accelerating. Science and technology are core to that.
The way the model I see is changing is that we realise that no matter how effective and well partnered DST Group is with the ADF, we have a role now not just to be the delivery agent but also the facilitator and the delivery agent. What I mean by that is there are some elements of S&T that can
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66 | September 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au