The National Intelligence Community (NIC) has partnered with the Australian National University to bring the best and brightest minds in science and technology together for the inaugural NIC Research Symposium.
The Symposium, led by the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), connected NIC subject-matter experts with leading Australian researchers and international partners working on 22 projects spanning the physical and social science disciplines.
Over two days, the Symposium attracted more than 300 attendees, including Mr Andrew Shearer, Director-General of National Intelligence and Dr Catherine Marsh, Director of Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity at the US Government’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The inaugural event underscored the importance to national intelligence of developing deep and collaborative partnerships with the Australian science, technology, and research communities.
“As a community we are going to have to muster all of the collective knowledge, experience, capabilities and relationships of our 10 NIC agencies to help navigate this world,” said Mr Shearer.
Over the next decade, ONI on behalf of the NIC will invest in revolutionary and transformational research across a range of disciplines. This will enable the NIC to systematically invest in research and innovation – as a community – to retain and future-proof its capability edge.
ONI’s Deputy Director-General Technology and Capability and Chief Intelligence Scientist, Dr Paul Taloni PSM, reinforced to researchers that the nature of their work, and its significance to national security, should not be underestimated.
“We’ve unambiguously entered a new era in which we must engage with academia, we must engage with industry, we must engage with our international partners to an even more substantial extent than we have historically, to address the common issues facing us,” said Dr Taloni.
Further information about the NIC’s research grant program can be found on the National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants program(Opens in a new tab/window) page.
