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Formerly known as Partnerships Week, Scindicate 2018 took place at DST’s facility at Fisherman’s Bend on the edge of the Melbourne CBD on August 29 and 30.

The event is DST’s annual showcase of some of the work it is doing in the Defence Science and Technology area, with the aim of forming mutually beneficial partnerships with industry and academia. First held (as Partnerships Week) at DST’s facility at Edinburgh in SA in 2015, it has since alternated between the two sites.

According to Chief Defence Scientist (CDS) Dr Alex Zelinsky, the event highlights the continuing importance of strengthening DST’s external engagement with industry and academia, while at the same time opening up opportunities for collaboration to achieve capability outcomes for Defence and national security.

“Our people are seeing how they can work with others, how can we work together to deliver a bigger outcome together than we could alone,” Dr Zelinsky explained as he opened the second full day of activities. “A lot of things quite frankly we can’t do on our own. We have many, many good people here in DST, but we don’t have all the best people.”

Dr Zelinsky said that much of the talent needed to develop what he called game-changing technologies – those aimed at either creating or denying strategic surprise – resides outside DST elsewhere in Australia and he is seeking to work collaboratively with industry and academia, to the benefit of both.

“We have a very modern way and effective way of handling Intellectual Property (IP).  Security is always a concern to us, but we have built frameworks around that, so there are now just great ways to work together,” he told delegates. “This is really a wonderful opportunity.”

Commodore Phil Spedding from Navy Capability later provided an end user’s perspective of the value that partnerships between DST, academia and industry bring to Defence.

“DST is helping us to exploit our future opportunities; they help us in some of the early concept exploration and the concept development stage (and) they provide key support to our projects as they work through the approval stages,” he said.

“A relatively small DST can’t possibly build and maintain a depth of knowledge and expertise across all Defence science and technology-related disciplines, hence it’s not just desirable, but absolutely essential, that DST develop and sustain mutually productive relationships and collaborations with industry and with academia.

“I can only stress, as an ADF warfighter, the absolute need to develop those partnerships.”

The opening address on the first day of Scindicate 2018 was delivered by newly-appointed Minister for Defence Christopher Pyne, who went on to make a range of announcements highlighting the work already done in this regard.

Minister Pyne announced that multi-spectral simulation software developed by DST has been licensed to Consilium Technology, an Adelaide-based SME. Consilium will now market the software globally.

Known as Infinite Studio, the software builds on DST’s multi-spectral visualisation system but has been further developed by Consilium Technology. “This is a great outcome for Australian innovation, Defence and industry collaboration and jobs growth,” Minister Pyne said.

Minister Pyne also presided over the handover of the Non-Intrusive Flight Test Instrumentation (NIFTI) system to the RAAF. NIFTI was conceived by DST, in collaboration with the RAAF’s Air Warfare Centre, and developed by SME Defence Innovations for use in an operational environment.

“In trials NIFTI has reduced flight test instrumentation down-time from months to days with significant cost savings,” Minister Pyne said. “This is another impressive example of an innovation technology transitioning to Defence capability.”

Finally, Minister Pyne congratulated Professor Andre Luten and his team from the University of Adelaide for their DST Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia. Dr Luten’s team has developed a sapphire clock, capable of keeping time to unprecedented accuracy over extremely long periods of time – measured in tens of millions of years. The technology will be used in future upgrades to the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) system.

“This is an example of world-leading research with a positive impact on Australia’s defence and national security,” Pyne added. “It is a fantastic result which will be a game-changer for Defence capability.”

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