I had the opportunity to unpack the NorVic Foods ecosystem with Lisa Birrell (who was CEO) and Greg Harper (who drove the genesis of the initiative). With the ongoing conversations in Australia around innovation ecosystems (which we have had with John Howard), the need for better industry engagement (which we have had most recently with Jane Fitzpatrick) and the challenges of building regional ag innovation systems (discussed sometime back with Elena Kelavra), this presented as a coming together of these threads.

We set the scene as to the idea behind NorVic Foods (which is an abbreviation of Northern Victoria Foods) given its geographic centre was Shepparton in Victoria. At its heart, it was a different approach to building an ecosystem, putting established industry at the centre of the initiative to draw innovation in. This sits in contrast to ecosystems seeking to build new ventures driving to push innovation out.

Given the partnership between (State) government, University of Melbourne and regional industries, we spent some time discussing the governance model and associated metrics with securing the funding. A Project Control Board was established as part of ensuring alignment between projects, capabilities and available resources. This underpinned the early efforts of Lisa (who was appointed CEO) to start building connections between the university (from which students would be placed) and industry (where their internships would take place).

Greg and Lisa were able to share some examples of success, which were not only interesting in their own right but got me thinking about how to define and describe success. They shared that the work delivered by student had, in some cases, made its way into business case proposals to executive and board level in the private sector. It struck me this is a really great outcome, as the circumstances in which investment might be made are well outside the remit or even influence of those undertaking the technical program. While we do focus on economic outcomes, some recognition should be found for students and, perhaps, researchers whose work underpins investible propositions that don't get invested in for a range of reasons?

Particularly interesting were the insights gained from the four- year journey of NorVic Foods from each of Greg and Lisa. A key insight was around the 'Nascent Value Chain Club' that Greg described – bringing some economic theory into how an ecosystem can create value beyond the sum of its parts. With the program funding closing after four years, Lisa felt they had really only "just got started" with driving connections and impact through the region.

In our first joint podcast, I joined Victoria Meyer and The Chemical Show to explore technology transfer and innovation in the chemical industry. The chemical industry is where I got my start, with Dow Chemical and subsequently Akzo Nobel (now Nouryon), and I have maintained my deep interest in and passion for the sector over the years. The opportunity to continue this through the biobased economy, industrial and agricultural biotech, made for a really contrasting foundation to Victoria's journey in petrochemicals at Shell, Amoco, Lyondell Basell and Clariant.

I got asked a really fundamental question being 'what is tech transfer' and from there, we started to explore productisation, the challenges of valuation and risk, and the need to demonstrate products and the ability to scale.

Perhaps somewhat harshly, I pointed to a general ignorance of the complexity of tech transfer as being one of the limiting factors in bringing innovation to market. In reflecting further in our discussion, we explored the different skills needed in varying business phases and strategies. Victoria raised biosurfactants as a really interesting example of how innovation works with larger organisations and their partnerships with smaller, arguably nimbler, organisations. I noted the importance of both outsourcing of risk and the criticality of an internal champion.

We also talked about the risk of internal disruption on operations as part of why larger organisations might struggle to develop and adopt innovations. Victoria noted that efficiency and effectiveness are being redesigned and that smaller scale, distributed assets may be more of the future as part of an increasing focus on resilience – which will require more innovation through supply chains.

The search for greater supply chain and production resilience will call for changed approaches to innovation and culture which will, in turn, have an organisational fitness cost. Cost, not just in economic terms, but in behavioural and cultural dimensions.

Victoria paused to reflect on how many things have to come together and we started to unpack that multidimensional problem by focusing on measuring value. We started on the dynamics of public and private ownership and finance and the leadership and executive incentives around performance. Ultimately, it's about meeting customer needs and being relentlessly focused on these. In doing so, it may require a more porous or open innovation model compared to the days of doing it all in house. Victoria noted the 'not invented here syndrome' may run counter to that dynamic and then went on to note that merges and acquisitions are a path being pursued to access innovation and gave a great contemporary example of internal (human) dynamics which highlighted for me that humans to tech transfer and M&A, not organisations.

Victoria asked the question of the role of the board and the executive team in technology transfer and innovation. I suggested it's around articulation of risk appetite and tolerance. We compared agriculture and chemicals and found chronological similarities. Victoria suggested that the onus is more on the executive team rather than the board. With smaller boards, they have greater influence, but it's more the executive team where there are independent boards. Victoria noted that filtering and biases may be impacting what the board hears and the C-suite interpretation from the board. Ultimately, it's about risk tolerance and management to deliver profitable organisations. However, innovation can also be seen as a means to lower risk, in contrast to a direct improvement in profitability.

Victoria introduced the question of measuring the value arising from innovation, contrasting investments in digital vs (operational) capital. I suggested that this is an eternal challenge in tech transfer and some soothsaying involved in an attempt to measure progress and set expectations. I highlighted the need to have clear assumptions and conditions for success in measuring progress. Digital is particularly interesting, and particularly AI, and looking back to internal investment in longer term R&D wondered whether the loss of internal risk appetite makes innovation investments harder to justify and/or measure. Victoria reflected on her experience with Shell's re-entry into the polyethylene business. An observation drawn from her experience is that the more established one becomes, the riskier a misstep becomes. She also shared some of her experiences in building her current digitally enabled business. Victoria noted that there are no control group experiments with her digital innovation. We compared the need for control in some areas but not necessarily all and rely on human interpretation of results and using ai for augmentation of decisions.

We talked around regulation and its impacts following Victoria's discussion with Chris Jahn and how innovation and customer orientation can assist in dealing with differences between jurisdictions. Victoria highlighted that many leaders recognise the need for prudent regulation to ensure there are good operators in the industry. The challenge is that things aren't adapting fast enough. Sustainable and safer products exist but these need to be approved and regulated. I asked about enforcement and consequence, as a lack of enforcement leads to cultural and behavioural change, reflecting on the Responsible Care program, and the risk of that weakening. Victoria suggested that, beyond punitive damages, the social, or brand damage incurred by poor or bad faith actors in the system had some deterrent effect.

Victoria noted a shift from 'big S' sustainability to 'small s' sustainability in her ACI 2025 wrap and believes that this is driven by an industry pragmatism and shift from early 2020s to now. She drew on her personal experience with solar panel acquisition and the arising economic or commercial burden. We touched on a few examples which echo the challenge of the 'perfect getting in the way of the good'.

We closed with Victoria highlighting that the chemical industry does take a form of waste from petroleum and converts the carbon into an array of products, with BASF Ludwigshafen being the example offered and me reflecting on the agro-industrial complexes associated with the corn, sugar and pulp & paper industries.

I had the chance to catch up with Dennis Voznesenski, who hosts a regular Commonwealth Bank Agri Podcast. Dennis is an Agricultural Economist and author of War and Wheat: navigating markets during global conflict and is a frequent commentator on Australian agricultural markets and dynamics. With a general sense in Australia that we struggle for demand side innovation, I felt a conversation with Dennis who is focussed on industry would make for an interesting set of perspectives.

Dennis shared insights on the current challenges facing Australian farmers, particularly regarding rising costs of fuel and fertiliser due to global events. It was interesting that he framed the innovation opportunity around cost of production as he described Australian farmers as price takers and as such, this is what they could control.

We spent some time exploring the role of agtech with Dennis sharing some operational examples. More specifically, I was interested in blockchain or the broader concept of traceability. Dennis noted that the need for traceability could result in two parallel supply chains forming. In the absence of a premium to cover these additional costs, I wondered how value could then emerge. We touched on the notion of 'mass balances' and Closed Loop Identity Preserved (CLIP) approaches to traceability and value creation. Dennis highlighted that systems are being set up, for example around emissions, and some markets are calling for this but there is no immediate ROI. As an afterthought, as I reflect on our conversation, there could be additional costs borne by producers and the broader supply chain!

We circled back to the price taker concept and shared a few personal examples of higher value ag products, such as Nufarm omega-3 canola and Arista high-amylose wheat and wondered if they were simply too small to be seen in the bigger picture? It was interesting how these examples of genetics lead us back to production costs and the importance of innovation and commercialisation of input traits to deliver scalable benefits.

Given the contemporary challenges in Australian fuel security, we closed our conversation around the opportunities for agricultural feedstocks and their local conversion to low carbon liquid fuels. Dennis reflected on his book and noted that fuel, fertiliser and ships were critical factors to production and trading security. We briefly explored a few scenarios for biobased low carbon liquid fuels before Dennis concluded, noting the endless opportunities for innovation that addresses production costs.

I had the chance to follow up with Jane Fitzpatrick on her powerful closing remarks at a panel session at the National Innovation Policy Forum last year. Jane is CEO of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, and her organisation sits at the intersection of science, innovation, translation and market pull. Given the challenges we've been highlighting on the podcast around the industry pull, and the recent Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) report, Ambitious Australia, it seemed a great time to build on her comments last year.

We opened a little unusually, in that we started where we left off from Podcast 55 (2025 National Innovation Policy Forum Review: Coordination and Translation) with Jane O'Dwyer, revisiting Jane's compelling observations around skills and experiences for tech transfer, and how these contrast with the training and, at times, interests of researchers. It was interesting to hear how ANFF had sought to build on the engagement with its client base and ecosystem, seeking to provide tech transfer support.

The delivery of tech transfer support through ANFF-C was discussed and the 'C' stood for more than commercialisation, which I saw as really insightful and an important broadening of what happens in tech transfer beyond the focus on commercialisation. I reflected on the moving of a cohort of researchers from 'unconscious incompetence' to 'conscious incompetence' around tech transfer.

Jane then drew a contrast between Research Infrastructure (of which ANFF is considered as part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), and Technology Infrastructure, which she noted is an emerging concept in Europe as a step up in scale, where contract manufacturing and larger production runs are needed, but the business case for a full scale (owned and operated) manufacturing facility may not yet stack up. We explore how that might play out in Australia and the need to focus on areas of strategic importance – like the six pillars that the Ambitious Australia report has offered.

We spent some time exploring the opportunity that quantum presents for Australia, as an example of strategic focus. Jane drew in a few ecosystem and sovereign examples of where strong strategic commitment has established long-term competitive advantage. In exploring the quantum opportunity, Jane shared the breadth of applications that exist now and emerging, comparing it to the journey 'nanotech' has been on where, now, it is mainly about applications and problem solving rather than fundamental science.

We spent some time discussing the demand side challenges for innovation and tech transfer. Reflecting on the culture of SMEs in Australia, we explored how SMEs constantly innovate to solve challenges but just don't necessarily call it innovation! Jane further contends that we have not done the demand side of innovation well, as problems don't necessarily get brought to researchers or startups to find solutions—these cohorts don't always, perhaps even rarely, position themselves as problem solvers, so how do they get found and connected? This brought to mind Katherine Woodthorpe's insights from Episode 17 where she asked, 'Where is the front door?'

We closed our discussions around building networks and connections to help anticipate and address industry challenges. The networks in the NCRIS community are continuing to strengthen, and I reflected back on a question of Andy Shafer's (who joined us on Episode 36), 'How can we help you be successful?'

I had the great pleasure of catching up with Jarett Abramson, who was 'between gigs' since his departure from Provivi and his imminent (and arguably eminent) commencement at BASF in Europe.

The journey started for Jarett with writing patents on cranberry juice extract and we explored how that path to market unfolded. In his private practice, he found himself working across a number of industry sectors, but fate kept bringing him back to the ag industry. When moving from the private firm to private sector (being initially Dow Pharma then Dow Agrosciences, the latter now part of Corteva Agriscience), he reflected on the change in culture.

Even at this early stage of his journey, technology transfer and 'learning through the role' became apparent. We touched on the idea of a 'traditional path' in technology transfer, quickly noting that there isn't really a definition and different experiences are key.

Jarett then moved from Indianapolis to Mexico City in changing roles from private sector to NGO at CIMMYT. While the same underpinning objective is 'bringing products to the marketplace', Jarett noted that there are very few 'silver bullets' in agriculture. He shared some of his experiences in contrasting the private and public sector tech transfer environments and objectives. Jarett then shared his continuing journey in public sector ag & food tech transfer in his move to COO at Agriculture Victoria Services. In reflecting on the change, it reinforced how important relationships are through the world of tech transfer and the need to 'understand the business in order to move forward'.

We spent some time discussing risk from the perspective of an attorney within a business. While exploring his preferred risk framework, Jarett noted that the hardest thing is remembering what the risks are and in turn, the importance of active risk registers, concluding that in order to be successful you have to take risk.

Jarett re-entered the private sector in moving back to Los Angeles with Provivi and became a 'jack of all trades' through his new venture journey. We spent a little time specifically discussing patents and patent strategy in a new venture setting. Specifically, we contrasted big corporates with new ventures. Another area of tech transfer we spent some time exploring was product translation, understanding cost of goods sold (COGS) and the scale up journey. In agriculture the importance of local demonstrations was highlighted as results don't always translate between regions.

We closed with Jarett reflecting on a few life lessons and setting the scene for his impending move to Europe.

In our annual podcast leading into Science Meets Parliament, we had the opportunity to discuss innovation, tech transfer and research translation with Jasmine Chambers, Science & Technology Australia President and Professor Stephen Rodda, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Industry & Innovation) at UNSW.

With STA building on their bench to boardroom initiatives with their new 'Science Meets the Economy' Program, Jas and Stephen shared their experiences and reflections with the Australian innovation system, and their respective journeys through research and translation. It was interesting to have Jas note that her early forays into translation were catalysed by frustration! In contrast Stephen shared his observations and experiences from his time in Boston and London.

A question we spent some time discussing was where is industry to capitalise on the domestic innovation ecosystem – a theme that we have touched on through the podcast regularly over past months. Stephen reflected on lessons from the invention and subsequent acceleration of solar technology and how Australia can ensure that it captures more of the industry and research opportunities and associated value with emerging technologies.

We had a great conversation around the role of private sector culture, the role, or lack of role, for science and engineering in board and strategy decision making. This was contrasted with other countries, in particular Germany, where greater value is placed on these perspectives. It is the opportunity to build the presence of technology perspectives into strategy and decision-making that sits and the heart of improvements in productivity and economic complexity. These themes have been discussed with Greg Harper, Jane O'Dwyer and Catherine Livingstone amongst others.

Jas identified language and communication as an important linker in building trust and value between different business communities – e.g. STEM, finance, marketing and perceptions how that lack of trust means risk and opportunity discussions become limited. Ultimately these connections are built through relationships and proximity.

In our first recorded abroad episode for 2026, I had the opportunity earlier this month to catch up in person with Jim Lane in Digestville, located in Key Biscayne, Florida. I hope that many of you recall that we catch up with Jim intermittently and since our last chat with him in November 2024, much has changed in the world of the biobased economy, and yet many themes remain the same!

We firstly reflected on some major trends that are emerging, echoed in the title of this podcast. Jim observed how important the biobased economy is becoming in the corporate and national conversations around resilience, and that security and defence interests are also rising in the new products and distributed manufacturing pathways that biotechnologies and biobased products could provide.

Given the current discussions in Australia around First Of A Kind (FOAK) manufacturing facilities, I was very keen to explore Jim's recent writings on this matter. We explored how government and industry play roles in the establishment of FOAK and Jim noted that how this is done is critical to ensuring that there aren't complications arising with SOAK (which I shall leave you all to interpret – or listen to the podcast). Jim also reflected on another concept closely associated with FOAK which is the establishment of normalcy, or persistence of the arising products. This gave me cause to reflect on the recent, and some might say ongoing, alt-meat market which grew, peaked and troughed and now regaining its feet, and how normalcy may have played a role in this sectors trip through the Dunning Kruger effect. The conversation then moved to FOAK and fuels (while alert to being mispronounced) and the importance of feedstock, revisiting our 'Sara Lee' feedstocks acronym from our conversation in November 2024. Sustainable, Affordable, Reliable, Available, Low carbon Extractable and Efficient feedstocks.

We touched on the cost of feedstock as a percentage of variable cost and the need to demonstrate that it can be reliably accessed, and then Jim laid out quite a challenge from a SAF contracting perspective. In essence, the challenge is how to compete with the abundance of fossil feedstock and create renewable scale that meets market demand. To that end, Jim favours forestry as a preferred feedstock, with its well understood supply chains and production systems, but he also noted the need for oxygen removal from biocrude and price at the refinery gate to be near fossil prices. I suggested that in an ideal world, with unlimited fats, oils and greases, we would favour the HEFA pathway. We then reflected on the Alcohol-To-Jet (ATJ) pathway, touching back on the FOAK challenge. Discussing the importance of technology guarantees and how to manage this in the absence of a balance sheet, I raised the example of the DuPont 1,3 PDO Sorona technology, launched some 15 years back and a journey we discussed with Ray Miller in Episode 3. Jim noted that integration and dependencies need to last a long time, and industry stability as a factor, alongside policy stability.

Turning back to chemicals, Jim shared the view that flatter supply chains are more likely to adopt biobased or novel chemistry. Jim very kindly reflected on the 'complexity law' that I have floated for the past few years and contended that these flatter supply chain successes bore this rule of thumb out. Reflecting on biopolymers, we observed that the sustainability benefits are typically much smaller than operational benefits—sustainability can be strong but hard to operationalise.

We close out our conversation with a little soothsaying, and while uncertainty will likely dominate the coming year the biobased economy needs corporate strength, not technology strength while working on a stronger positioning that reframes price, value and consequence. Jim's final metaphor of the leaf on the ocean seemed very apt given the focus on biobased economy.

Following the National Innovation Policy Forum (NIPF) in November 2025, I had the opportunity to reflect on the event with Jane O'Dwyer from Cooperative Research Australia (CRA) in mid-December.

We started with the raison d'être of the NIPF to increase the linkages between industry, the innovation system and policymakers. To this end, as patrons of NIPF, David Thodey and Catherine Livingstone have been catalysing the thinking over the past few years as the conversations and ambitions of NIPF evolved. The NIPF to date has moved from describing the problems to seeking how government and industry shape innovation policy and looking to ways to improve technology transfer, commercialisation and translation. When we recorded, there was great anticipation that SERD would offer insights in to how the federal government will respond to these opportunities.

John Howard set the scene chairing the first session, noting that a "list of priorities isn't a market". He, Elanor Huntington, Jane Fitzpatrick and Marcus Dawe explored policy and industry perspectives in the 'Turning Missions to Markets' session. Jane and I spent some time reflecting on the 'First Of A Kind' (FOAK) challenges that Marcus introduced to the forum, discussing FOAK anywhere vs FOAK in Australia and the role of government as a first customer. Roy Green chaired a conversation with Linda Scott and Jasmina Joldic on system coordination. We hear from both Linda and Jasmina on the podcast; Linda sharing the concept of an 'Innovation Accord' to try to resolve some of the innovation system complexities that have emerged at the government–industry–innovation system interface; Jasmina reflected on the need to declutter and move the focus to outcomes and impact.

The third and final session discussed Innovation as a driver for productivity. Jane and I reflected on the Harrison.ai story and its journey from domestic incubation to offshore commercialisation. Annette Schmiede, Adriano Di Pietro and Cori Stewart joined me on this panel touching on local manufacturing and the role of 'Original Equipment Manufacturers' in stimulating demand for innovation. Jane and I further reflected on the challenge of not wanting to constrain organisations growing, yet needing or wanting to find ways to keep these growing companies domiciled in Australia. This is part of the broader 'domestic demand side problem' for innovation and we talked of how 'moving the cheese' and focusing on major areas (or missions, flagships, BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) or other suitable names) could act as a catalyst to aligning domestic demand with domestic innovation.

We closed the podcast with Jane Fitzpatrick offering what I feel is a compelling summary of why tech transfer matters and the opportunities that investment and partnering with people with these skills present.

In this episode, I had the opportunity to chat with Greg Harper, a longstanding colleague and friend, who has been on the tech transfer and commercialisation journey for many years. In this conversation Greg shares some of his experience and perspectives following his time at CSIRO, as a board member at Meat and Livestock Australia, senior leadership roles within the Agriculture Victoria and, most recently, at University of Melbourne.

Greg shared some of his early journey into technology transfer from his post doc at the National Institute of Health, Uppsala University and CSIRO, where he became involved in market orientated science, and the development and delivery of products to market, in a broad collaboration led by Professor John Hopwood, that created enzyme-replacement therapies for children suffering from mucopolysaccharidosis.

We quickly turned our discussion to more contemporary issues in the Australian innovation system, reflecting on the recent economic roundtable and calls for improved productivity (which we have discussed on some of our other recent podcasts). We discussed the notion that there is an over representation of research but relative under representation on translation in the local innovation and productivity discourse. This line of thinking connects back to the discussion with Catherine Livingstone in Episode 50 and the National Innovation Policy Forum Prequel podcast with Catherine and David Thodey in Episode 53. We explored how tech transfer has "fallen through the gaps" in Australia, with the Productivity Commission setting it aside for SERD to address, and the rise of a startup ecosystem that may be a proxy for externalising tech transfer from research institutions. Greg, with some insight from his daughter, then introduced the broader notion of innovation as central to sustainability—not just productivity. This invited some reflections on what sustainability means as a central tenent of innovation.

I started reflecting on Victor Pantano's recent observations that there is international demand for Australian innovation and asked Greg why that demand isn't appearing locally. Greg thinks this is a networking and relationship challenge more than an alignment problem and that research and industry are not communicating in similar languages. We spent some time, given our shared interest and experience in the bioeconomy and agrifood, reflecting on the communication and alignment challenges around bringing digital and biophysical innovations to market. Patience was discussed as a missing ingredient in the domestic private sector (or innovation demand side), and contrasted this with the longer term, patient funding that can be found in other jurisdictions. We touched on venture in Ag, noting this was an in-depth discussion with Roger Wyse earlier this year.

Greg and I then reflected on role of the board and strategy following the article that we published through the Acton Institute last month, exploring the important role that the board should play in setting the culture and risk appetite. While we had discussed this with Anne-Marie Perret for new ventures, we focussed this discussion on the role of established companies and their boards, and two lenses for boards to use—the growth and opportunity lens and its link to the governance, regulation and compliance lens. We explored the question of how a board gets a contemporaneous measure on risk appetite and profile.

Greg then reflected on his experiences at MLA and the commercialisation of VIAscan, an automated carcase digitisation and assessment technology developed through MLA investments, and the board processes associated with taking risk for long-term industry benefit. We explored this as an example of the importance of complementary technology, disruptors, timing and patience in bringing a technology to market.

I asked Greg about the role of boards and management teams in building absorptive capacity and how this ties back to the risk culture. Greg suggested that we are demographically challenged in that the younger we are, then higher risk appetite we might have. Greg brought this to life through an ag-production lens and the importance of regions and community in setting a culture of innovation and risk taking.

We closed out our discussion around Greg's sabbatical with Professor Soren Salomo at the Technical University Berlin, and reflecting on NorVic Foods— the team led by Lisa Birrell, and how ecosystems form and are assessed.

The fourth National Innovation Policy Forum (NIPF) hosted by Cooperative Research Australia is this coming Monday 3 November 2025 in Canberra— a gathering that brings together leaders across government, business and research to explore how Australia can harness its innovation ecosystem for national advantage.

In this special pre-Forum episode of Tech Transfer Talks, NIPF Co-Patrons Catherine Livingstone AC and David Thodey AO share thoughtful and timely reflections on the opportunities before us. Catherine reminds us that 'we have no excuse now not to think deeply and long-term—innovation is not an optional accessory.' David adds, 'Stay the course. Grab the opportunity, make a difference and give it a go.'

Their conversation is a call to action: to translate our strengths in science, research and technology into the next decade of national prosperity—through collaboration, experimentation and execution. We explore the notion of moving the focus from innovation to experimentation and establishing a culture within government and industry that encourages experimentation to drive the productivity gains being sought throughout the private and public sectors.

With political stability providing a rare window for long-term planning and the outcomes of the Strategic Examination of R&D soon to be known, our conversations will focus on how we harness this moment to turn ideas into impact—aligning education, research, business R&D and policy to drive national advantage.