From Research to Results: What the National Innovation Policy Forum means for sustainable infrastructure

This week we had the privilege of attending the National Innovation Policy Forum 2026, hosted by Cooperative Research Australia, bringing together government, researchers, industry leaders and innovators to explore one of Australia’s most pressing challenges: how to turn innovation into productivity, capability and economic growth. 

A recurring theme throughout  the forum was that Australia does not have an invention problem. We have a translation and adoption problem.

In his keynote address, Senator Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science, pointed to declining productivity growth, weaker business dynamism and slow diffusion of innovation as key challenges identified in Australia’s Intergenerational Report 2026. He argued that Australia’s prosperity will depend not only on research excllence, but on our ability to translate ideas into products, businesses and jobs, particularly through greater adoption of AI and emerging technologies across industry.

That message resonated throughout the day. Speakers from industry, universities and government repeatedly highlighted the need to bridge the gap between research, commercialisation and implementation. AS Professor Roy Green from the University of Technology Sydney observed, Australia has world class researchers and institutions, but too often innovation stalls between the prototype and market adoption stages.

For the infrastructure sector, these discussions are highly relevant. Infrastructure productivity, sustainability and resilience increasingly depend on our ability to adopt new technologies, embrace digital tools and use better data to inform decisions across the asset lifecycle.

One of the highlights of the forum was seeing the growing recognition of data-driven decision-making and place-based innovation. This was particularly encouraging given ISC’s recent partnership with AURIN (Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network), led by Professor Pascal Perez. Together, ISC and AURIN are working to strengthen the connection between sustainability research, infrastructure planning and practical industry application, by co-creating a platform to share 15 years of infrastructure project data collected from over 250 projects.

The partnership was recently invited to feature at the CRA’s 2026 ‘Built Here’ Parliamentary Showcase, demonstrating how collaborative research can help address some of Australia’s most complex infrastructure challenges. The showcase highlighted exactly the kind of collaboration that many forum speakers argued is essential if Australia is to lift productivity and strengthen sovereign capability.

Another consistent message from the forum was that innovation does not occur in isolation. Whether discussing advanced manufacturing, clean energy, quantum technologies, regional development or critical minerals, speakers emphasised the importance of long-term investment, collaboration and policy and regulatory certainty. Innovation ecosystems succeed when researchers, governments, investors and end users work together to solve real world problems.

For ISC, this reinforces the importance of our role in policy, advocacy and industry leadership. Sustainability infrastructure is ultimately about translating knowledge into practice. Through partnerships such as AURIN engagement with government and support for industry innovation, ISC is helping to ensure that research outcomes are not left on the shelf but are applied to deliver more productive, resilient and sustainable infrastructure for communities across Australia.

If the forum had one clear takeaway, it was this: the future of Australia’s productivity will depend not only on what we invent, but on how effectively we implement, scale and adopt innovation. Sustainable infrastructure has an important role to play in that journey.