Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb AC, welcomes people to the 2013 TERN Symposium
Welcome one and all to the 2013 TERN Symposium. It has been a pleasure to watch TERN’s progress over the past three years. Like many other NCRIS-funded capabilities, TERN’s mission has been to provide the fundamental collaborative research infrastructure needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which publicly funded science is performed and delivered in Australia. It is now becoming clear that TERN has been a successful investment: not only has the infrastructure been delivered, but ecosystem researchers and managers are already using it to achieve more and collaborate in new and unexpectedly fruitful ways.
The 2013 symposium is a physical manifestation of TERN’s capacity to foster exactly these kinds of connections. Gathered here are over 300 researchers, policymakers and managers, from a remarkable array of disciplines and organisations around the country and internationally, many crossing paths for the first time, unified by the recognition that TERN’s collaborative research infrastructure is a game-changer for ecosystem science and management in Australia.
The stakes have never been higher. Australia’s diverse ecosystems are in decline, and their capacity to continue delivering the goods and services upon which our communities and industries depend has never been more imperilled. TERN has now delivered much of the fundamental research infrastructure necessary to bring solutions to previously intractably complex ecosystem science and management problems within our reach.
I encourage all delegates at the Symposium to make the most of this opportunity to contribute to the transformation of Australian ecosystem science. It’s an exciting time, and there’s a lot to do. Let’s get to work.
Published in TERN e-Newsletter February 2013 special symposium coverage
