Page 2518 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016

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Through the “confident and business ready—building on our strengths” campaign the government has agreed to work in partnership with the CBR Innovation Network to support the higher education and research institutions goals of developing key capability areas. These are the national and agricultural environmental sciences precinct, led by ANU and CSIRO; the information and communications technology and e-government cluster, led by Data 61 and ANU; the cyber security innovation cluster, led by ANU, UNSW Canberra, Data 61 and UC; the ACT space innovation cluster, led by ANU and UNSW Canberra; the sports technology cluster, led by UC; and the health innovation cluster also led by UC.

I will take a moment to specifically mention the government’s continued and ongoing support for the defence industry, including through the position of the recently appointed local industry advocate, a position we created to strengthen ties between government and the community and to make connections across our higher education research institutions, the ACT and federal governments and our higher education institutions.

In successive business development strategies we have highlighted our defence capability in our city and the particular potential we have in cyber security and the space and spatial sectors. Indeed, on behalf of the government, I have addressed a number of defence industry events in the past couple of months, including in June the defence and industry 2016 conference, the first time this conference was held outside of South Australia. I pitched Canberra‘s defence industry credentials to the biggest players in this field, and the day after the conference the government arranged for a number of Canberra companies to pitch directly to defence’s global supply chain forum.

Following the release of confident and business ready last year, the vice-chancellors forum agreed to work with the government to oversight the implementation of the commitment to promote Canberra as Australia’s education and research capital. At our most recent meeting the forum agreed to an international education strategy, a collaborative approach to attracting investment in the key capability areas, and a proposal to work closely together to create more internships for students attending Canberra’s educational institutions.

Skills development, whether through a tertiary degree, a vocational qualification or the application of research, is a critical piece of our economic development ambition. Access to a highly skilled workforce is one of the advantages Canberra has to offer and is a significant enabler of economic growth. The diversification of Canberra’s economy relies on a high-performing VET sector that allows our skilled community to contribute to the economic prosperity and social engagement in our city. This requires improved collaboration both within government and with our business and industry stakeholders.

The move of Skills Canberra earlier this year into the higher education, training and research portfolio will enable greater alignment of our vocational education and training services with our areas of economic development and better connections between education skills, jobs, community safety, health outcomes and productivity.


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