Creating the future through science platforms
CSIRO is investing in Future Science Platforms to turn Australia’s future challenges into opportunities that will create a better future.
Our future world is being shaped by the science we do today. Future Science Platforms (FSPs) are multi-year, multi-disciplinary investments in science that underpin innovation and that has the potential to help reinvent and create new industries for Australia. Here is a summary of the visions behind eight of CSIRO’s Future Science Platforms:
Combining materials, robotics, processing and sensing technologies and autonomous science to lead ground-breaking advances at the interface of big data, advanced autonomous systems, and materials science. These inventions and advances will drive the i-manufacturing or manufacturing 4.0 revolution and put early adopter industries ahead of the competition.
In the future, Australia’s minerals, energy and water resources will come from far greater depths in the Earth and from deep offshore sources, but our ability to find and exploit these resources is limited by the deep and complex cover of sediments and weathered material that covers 80 per cent of Australia’s land mass. The science of Deep Earth Imaging will help us more precisely image subsurface rock properties to unlock the potential of this vast and relatively under-explored area.
Digiscape is about harnessing the digital revolution for Australian farmers and land managers. We will solve multiple real-life knowledge shortfalls in the land sector simultaneously by building a common big data infrastructure that will support next generation decision making and transform agricultural industries and environmental action.
Environomics aims to reinvent how we measure and monitor ecosystem health, predict biodiversity responses to environmental change, manage biological resources, detect biosecurity threats and more. This next generation of environmental science will be based on genomics, phenomics, big data informatics and simulation.
Australia has access to vast energy resources through sun, wind, biomass, natural gas and coal, all of which can be used to produce hydrogen and/or the desired energy carrier compound. The fuel could be used in transport, power generation and to offset more carbon-intensive resources, in Australia and internationally.
Precision Health
This is about working closely with the community to develop a tailored healthcare paradigm. Precision Health will focus on creating an integrated platform that can be used to proactively manage a person’s health throughout the course of their life through highly tailored food, nutrition and lifestyle interventions.
A revolution in healthcare through devices and systems to obtain real-time information from living organisms about their health and well-being. This will lead to the ability to provide health and medical interventions that are timely, customised and highly specific. Innovative autonomous sensing technology also strengthens future biosecurity control.
This FSP will play a role in responsible development of SynBio technology – one of the fastest growing areas of modern science. This will enable us to create biological systems and devices to support global developments and contribute to advances in areas including manufacturing, industrial biotechnology, environmental remediation, biosecurity, agriculture, and healthcare research.
Hydrogen research at CSIRO. The creation of a Hydrogen FSP will enable technologies to promote solar energy exports, as well as providing low emissions energy solutions
