Overview
The Expert Forum is focused on new forms of nanotechnology and biotechnology (including synthetic biology). This includes areas of intersection, as well as those enabled by ICT and cognitive science.
The purpose of the ETRM is to:
- provide guidance to the Expert Forum about possible enabling technology developments over the next 10-15 years
- outline issues these transforming technologies may raise in terms of opportunities, risks, barriers and their potential for disruptive impact
- assist in identifying the prospects for enabling technologies to help address Australia’s national challenges.
The Enabling Technologies Roadmap (ETRM) is a report commissioned by the department on the advice of the National Enabling Technologies Strategy (NETS) Expert Forum, and prepared by the Australian Institute for Commercialisation (AIC).
Public Consultation
The department invites the public and key stakeholders to provide comments and feedback on the draft ETRM report [
PDF 1.6 MB] [
DOC 3.4 MB] which will be considered in finalising the ETRM.
The NETS Expert Forum asks that, in commenting on the draft ETRM, stakeholders:
- consider the scope of the ETRM
- provide relevant citations for any additional information provided
Submissions are to be sent to enablingtechnologies@innovation.gov.au.
If you have any difficulty sending your email contact enablingtechnologies@innovation.gov.au.
Closing date for submissions: 5:00pm AEDST on Thursday, 23 February 2012.
Important note: Unless otherwise requested, submissions will be made publicly available on the department’s website shortly after they are received.
Scope
The draft ETRM provides a roadmap of new and emerging enabling technologies against five dimensions of analysis:
- drivers
- opportunities
- barriers
- risks
- disruptive potential.
It also considers how they might help to address defined national challenges.
The draft ETRM provides a horizon scan over the following time-frames:
- Horizon 1: technologies that are currently commercialised
- Horizon 2: technologies currently under develop (lab bench) with expected commercialisation within the next decade
- Horizon 3: Long-term (blue sky - greater than 20 years) technologies and applications.
Considerations
Our consultants have drawn from a large amount of information to incorporate material into the ETRM in a meaningful way. However, the department recognises that there are many people who have knowledge of, and interest in, these technologies that may have additional information which could improve the ETRM.
We request feedback in the following areas:
- Does the report capture all the key technological developments within the scope of the report and their potential applications?
- Is there published data that is more recent than that referred to in the report?
- Are there any key issues under opportunities, risks, barriers and potential for disruptive potential that have not been identified?
On the final point, we note that this report is intended to highlight these issues so that they can be addressed through other processes rather than contain an exhaustive discussion of them. It would be of particular interest to highlight areas of potential social impact or ethical interests.
However, comments are welcome across the full scope of the report.
Outcomes
All submissions will be considered in preparation of the final report. A hard copy of the ETRM will be available on request. A Summary Report will be published on the department’s website.