THE highest-rating non-news program on Australian television isn’t a reality show and isn’t a talent search. It’s a show – let’s not call it a drama – about science. CSI and its offshoot CSI Miami are both among the most-watched programs in this country, and their appeal lies not in the calibre of acting but in the scientific toys and methods used to solve crime.

Importantly, they are attracting young people to science, says University of Adelaide School of Earth & Environmental Sciences researcher Dr Sandra Orgeig. She suggests that while the “overly romantic view, not to mention the unbelievable array of toys” used in CSI are unrealistic, any television program that leads Australian teenagers to at least contemplate a career in science can’t be all bad.

Recent Thinker in Residence Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield may or may not be a fan of CSI but she’d surely agree with Orgeig. As she told an audience of about 1800 people in the final public foray of her two-month residency, the crucial element in producing the next generation of scientists is attracting teenagers to an oft-unappealing subject – making them curious, making them want to learn. It’s tapping that curiosity, and steering young people toward education and eventually career choices, that is vital to the future of science and technology in South Australia.

As the Rann Government’s brains trust understands, science and its commercial ramifications are increasingly valuable factors in our economy. Teenagers and their parents may continue to think of science as lab coats and test tubes, but key people in Parliament have been convinced that the state’s economic future depends on a science-driven mindset. So Premier Mike Rann not only has established the Premier’s Science and Research Council, but co-chairs it, alongside one of the State’s most important scientific resources, the SA Museum’s Dr Tim Flannery; Rann has committed (at the urging of another Thinker, Dr Maire Smith) $9 million to the “bioscience incubator”, providing laboratory and office space to start-up biotech companies at Thebarton; and – with Greenfield’s public thanks – provided funding for a human “project catalyst” to initiate some of Greenfield’s recommendations during the year until the Baroness returns.

In doing so, Rann’s government is visibly demonstrating to the community at large – and, importantly, to the scientific fraternity with which he wants to “forge genuine partnerships” – the Premier’s view of its significance. During her public address Greenfield referred to the government’s Strategic Plan, in which key targets are growing prosperity, improving well-being, attaining sustainability, fostering creativity, building communities and expanding opportunity. Which of those aspects, she asked, would not be furthered by a focus on and commitment to the development of science?

Instrumental in getting the science show on the road is the 10-year vision for science, technology and innovation, Shaping the Future – a blueprint released in April that is designed to place Adelaide on the world scientific map and reap the financial benefits of having science as a major industry.

As executive director of the Science, Technology and Innovation Directorate, Craig Fowler has to sell and implement the vision, part of which demands that “at least 80 per cent of the community in all demographics (will) have immediate recognition of key STI and innovation events/issues” by 2014. Fowler knows it’s a tough job. But achieve the other nine performance targets outlined in the 10-year plan – which range from SA securing 25 per cent more than its per-capita share of Commonwealth research grants and income, and increase the number and value of STI-related companies and products by 15 per cent each year – and the public would have to be blind to ignore it.

The key to public recognition, says Fowler, is to have people understand what science is and does; to have them appreciate that the laboratory is only one splinter on a spectrum that includes and leads to innovations such as better drug tests at the Olympics, stem cell research, smarter mobile phones and effective sun creams. “It’s all science, and it’s kind of lost,” he laments.

But Fowler and cohorts in universities, hospitals, industry and government are optimistic that with Shaping the Future as a starting point, and people such as the Baroness attracting mainstream attention as a one-person think-tank, SA may be able to find what has been misunderstood or ignored. But how to proceed? The buzzword among Adelaide’s scientific go-getters is “collaboration”. It’s a word used again and again in Shaping the Future, and by such people as Fowler, University of Adelaide’s executive dean of sciences Professor Peter Rathjen and Flinders University’s pro-vice chancellor of research, Professor Craig Marlin.

It’s also central to how the Commonwealth Government – according to its $5.3 billion Backing Australia’s Ability II program – will distribute research grants and funding, so for that reason, if for no other, it means no-one can afford a turf war. It means collaborating not only at the micro-level between individual academics, but between disciplines, between universities, and at the macro-level between entities: universities, hospitals, governments, public and private enterprise and industry.

“The new generation is doing world-class research that requires collaboration,” Professor Drew Dawson of the globally connected UniSA’s Centre for Sleep Research told the inaugural conference of the SA Neurosciences Institute in mid-August.

The establishment of SANI itself shows what can and should be done, and was a step commended by the Baroness (or, as one cheeky speaker referred to her, “BPSG”). The conference brought together about 200 people from fields as diverse as physiology and philosophy, all apparently aware that the future lies as a collective, not as individuals – although some, such as Dawson, seemed more aware than others that there is a time for in-depth explanation of individual research, and another time for discussing how such cooperative efforts might prove mutually beneficial.

The conference roll-call also reflected that instead of being perceived as a disadvantage, Adelaide’s size may be beneficial – it’s big enough to compete on a world stage, but small enough that distance and logistics don’t interfere with any desire to “share”.

Marlin points out that there weren’t a lot of Adelaide neuroscientists absent from the inaugural gathering; the chances of such a ratio responding in a city like New York, or even Melbourne, he says are remote. “That’s the kind of thing we can use to our advantage,” Marlin says. “We know each other pretty well here. We’re not a large state; Australia is not a big player in world terms. We have to work out the areas we’re going to focus on and bring together all the relevant people and research.”

Oft-mentioned sectors South Australia could and should focus on include the obvious wine and agriculture, but also defence, water and aquaculture, reproduction and other biomedical areas, and – less visibly – the neurosciences.

The widely reported news that internationally renowned Dr Tanya Monro will join the University of Adelaide as the DSTO Professor in Photonics is an indication that partnerships between institutes of learning and research and the outside world – in this case, the Federal government’s Defence, Science and Technology Organisation – can and will work.

Monro and others like her – among them Professor Alan Cooper, who will arrive next year from Oxford to continue his work in investigating how ancient DNA helps understand today’s ecosystems, and reproduction specialist Professor Richard Ivell – have been seduced or retained by infrastructure only possible through non-academic partnerships. “It’s about invigorating what we’re doing by bringing in new people,” says Rathjen. “To get the best research you have to have the best people.”

Increasingly, too, you have to be an entrepreneur – to win people of Monro’s calibre away from all the other centres in the world that want her, and to earn the money that will let them do their work.

Dr Michelle Lane of the University of Adelaide’s obstetrics and gynaecology department – like Orgeig before her, one of a group of Tall Poppies chosen each year as young ambassadors of science – is a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide, but also a director of the IVF lab at Repromed who has been involved in the commercialisation of more than 10 products used in IVF clinical laboratories around the world.

Another 2004 Poppy is Dr Adam Fletcher, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Sleep Research who has advised organisations including Qantas, Rio Tinto and Exxon Mobil, spoken about his research to NASA, and who soon will depart to the US where he will research fatigue with the US Army.

It’s that aspect on which the future of science in Australia – and particularly Adelaide – will depend. People such as Dawson, Fletcher’s colleague at the Centre for Sleep Research, have worked on the concept that if they seek input from business and industry about what they want, they will create win-win partnerships.

The scientists receive funding to do relevant research, and the backers not only gain important knowledge but also the satisfaction that they contributed to a healthier and/or wealthier society.

As a result of an attitude that he admits leans heavily on the tactics of PT Barnum, Dawson’s centre now has a staff of 30 who not only are producing internationally-applauded research but who appreciate a career pathway (with the security that comes from being part of a centre with ongoing income) responsibility and autonomy at a young age. Plus there are factors such as flexible hours and an environment so family-friendly that they can bring their children to work.

A young conference attendee walking out after Dawson’s presentation at the SANI conference was heard to say, “Who doesn’t want to work there?” If the Baroness and her disciples have their way, in the near future “there” will refer not to one clinic, but to SA at large.