Home - Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation

Edition: 2026 May - New Office

Chunnup - Gariwerd calendar - Winter: late May to end of July - season of cockatoos

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology

Search

(Google Custom Search) e.g. name of organisation, person, phrase or word

Resources for the History of Australian Science and Innovation

Browse Entity Indexes A-Z [2026 May edition: total 10,315 entries.]
Browse Archival Resource Indexes A-Z [2026 May edition: total 3,060 entries.]
Browse Bibliographic Indexes A-Z [2026 May edition: total 29,813 entries.]
Latest Annual Bibliography [no. 45 2023/24], published in Historical Records of Australian Science, 2025 - download the pdf for free

New Office special edition - Swinburne Hawthorn Campus, Room BA 11-20

Featured Publication

Smith, Susan and Spurling, Thomas H., 'The Science and Industry Endowment Fund: supporting the development of Australian science',Historical Records of Australian Science, 26 (1) (2015), 58-83. A pdf available to subscribers or for purchase online. The Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) was established in 1926 by the passage in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia of the Science and Industry Endowment Act at the same time as the Science and Industry Research Act established the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The SIEF played a major role in funding the training of Australian research workers from 1926 to 1950 and funded much of the research carried out in Australian universities in the pre-war period.

Featured entries including Scientists, Engineers, Organisations and Innovations

Geological Survey of Tasmania (1859 - ), Colony and State of Tasmania: traces its origins to 1859 when Charles Gould was appointed Geological Surveyor: his contract was not renewed in 1869. Gustav Thureau, who had extensive experience in Victoria, was appointed Inspector of Mines (later also Geological Surveyor) in 1882: he retired in 1889. The Geological Survey formally became a branch of the Tasmanian Mines Branch in 1883.
British Astronomical Association, New South Wales Branch (1895 - ) : was founded in 1895. In 1894 Walter Gale, Robert Innes and John Tebbutt, together with other local members of the Association, petitioned for the establishment of the Branch. The inaugural meeting was held on 30 January 1895, Tebbutt being elected President.
William Dawes' Observatory, Sydney Cove (1788 - c. 1791). William Dawes, an astronomer on the British First Fleet to the Colony of New South Wales, came with instructions from the Astronomer Royal, Dr Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811) to establish an astronomical observatory. With the help of the French, who were in Port Jackson at the time, he began work on building the observatory in March 1788. Dawes left the colony in 1791 taking with him some of the astronomical instruments on loan from the Board of Longitude. Archival research by Richard de Grijs has shown that the last mentions of the observatory were in 1796.
Burrows Award (1975 - ), RACI - Inorganic Chemistry Division : has been presented by the Coordination and Metal-Organic Chemistry Division (later the Inorganic Chemistry Division) of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute since 1975. The Award recognises scientific work published in the past 10 years, with the major part of the research having been done in Australia, together with other evidence of the recipient's standing in the international community.
1851 Exhibition Scholarship Awards (1891 - ), Australia. Funded by surpluses from the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, the 'Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851' awards scholarships to support early career scientists and engineers of exceptional promise, to enable them to undertake further research. The awards have been made since 1891.
Electrical Association Premium (1919 - 1975) Institution of Engineers, Australia award was established on funds presented to the Institution of Engineers Australia by the Electrical Association of Australia, a Foundation Society. It was awarded for a paper on electrical or allied subjects, considered to be of sufficient merit as a contribution to the literature of the engineering profession. The award consisted of a certificate and a cash premium, and was first awarded in 1932 for papers published in 1925/26. In 1954, the name of the award was changed to the Electrical Engineering Prize, and after 1975, when the Electrical Engineering College was formed, the award was renamed the John Madsen Medal.
Warren Prize (2020 - ), Royal Society of New South Wales : was first awarded in 2020 by the Royal Society of New South Wales. Originally it was presented annually and recognised research by engineers and technologists in their early to mid-careers who have completed a body of work, relevant to society, that has been carried out principally in New South Wales. The recipient is invited to give a lecture to the Society. William H. Warren was Challis Professor of Engineering at the University of Sydney from 1890 to 1925, and served two terms as President of the Society. In 2023 the Prize was renamed the RSNSW Warren Award in Engineering, Technology, Architecture and Design, to be awarded every three years from 2025.
Cleland, Elizabeth Robson (1910 - 2005) was a zoologist who specialised in nematodes. Having graduated with a BSc from the University of Adelaide in 1933, she became a research assistant and demonstrator in the Department of Zoology at the University. Working with the Professor of Zoology, T. Harvey Johnston, she published several papers on Australian flatworms (trematodes), and completed her MSc on the anatomy of roundworms (nematodes). In 1938 Cleland married Alfred Simpson and left the University.
Beard, John Stanley (1916 - 2011) AM who trained as a forester, spent the first 24 years of his career in the West Indies and Natal, South Africa. In Natal, as President of the Botanical Society of Natal, he had oversight of the botanic garden in Pietermaritzburg. This engendered an interest in botanic gardens and led him to apply for the position as Director of the King's Park and Botanic Garden in Perth. As the first Director, he successfully contended with inadequate facilities and a lack of trained staff. Although King's Park was founded to specialise in the study, display and cultivation of Western Australia native plants, Beard found an absence of information that would assist him. He set about filling this gap: the first result was the publication of Descriptive catalogue of West Australian plants (1965).
Spiccia, Leone (1957 - 2016) was an inorganic chemist whose research combined chemistry with aspects of biology, biochemistry, medical science, nano-materials science and engineering, environmental science, earth science and physics. He focussed on understanding natural phenomena and the translation of concepts from nature into the laboratory to develop new metal complexes and inorganic materials for a diverse range of applications. Later research emphasised solar energy conversion into electricity and renewable fuels. Spiccia was Professor of Chemistry at Monash University from 2006 to 2016.
Johnston, Graham Allen Ross (1939 - ) AM FTSE FRACI FRSN FASCEPT was Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Sydney for 31 years. He trained as an organic chemist and carried out research at the interface between chemistry and pharmacology. Later in his career he served as President of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and the Australasian Society for Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists. He was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to bio-organic chemistry and pharmacology, to scientific organisations and to science policy development. Johnston formally retired in 2011 to become an Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry, continuing research studies on the neurotransmitter GABA.
Hart, Barry Thomas (1940 - ) AM FRACI established an international reputation in the fields of natural resources decision-making (water quality and catchment management, environmental flows, water policy), ecological risk assessment and environmental chemistry, and has published widely. Much of his professional life was as an academic and researcher at Caulfield Institute of Technology and Monash University, where he was Director of the Water Studies Centre and Deputy Director Research of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology. Upon his retirement in 1993, he was appointed an Emeritus Professor by Monash University.
Corbett, Arthur Hardie (1906 - 1990) took a leading role within the engineering profession in Australia - as a Councillor and President of the Institution of Engineers, Australia; as the Foundation Professor of Engineering, Royal Military College, Duntroon; and as a well respected engineering historian. Early in his career, in the 1930s, he contributed to the acceptance of electric arc-welding of steel structures in Australia, and through his work with the Hume Pipe Company (Australia) in New South Wales, contributed to the development of welded steel pipes, and the development of concrete pipes by a combination of vibration and centrifugal force.
Kepert, John Leslie (Jack) (1903 - 1970) was Director of Technical Education, Victoria from 1967 until he retired in 1968. He took a leading role in the transition of higher technical education from Education Department control to the Victorian Institute of Colleges, and the restructuring of vocational education within the Department. He was Assistant/Chief Inspector of Technical Education in Victoria, 1959 - 1967, and was Principal of Caulfield Technical School/College 1946 - 1959. His early teaching career was at Footscray Technical School/College (Victoria University of Technology) and they named the Kepert scholarship and a building after him.

Introduction

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation is a register of the people, industries, corporations, research institutions, scientific societies, awards, major events and other organisations that have contributed to Australia's scientific, technological, engineering and medical research heritage - the engine of innovation in this country. Each entry has references to their archival materials, museum objects and collections, and to bibliographic resources, including historical and current literature. Read more

Research, curation and web publication is supported by the Swinburne University of Technology, Office of the Chief Scientist. Web publication is by serial editions with at least four editions per year. Each edition contains new entries and articles as well as amendments and additions to existing entries.

The Encyclopedia acknowledges all Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples of Australia, the traditional custodians of Country. It recognises and supports their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders and leaders past and present, and extend that respect to all First Nations people of the world. We are incrementally building a gateway to sources documenting Australian First Nations' knowledge: see Theme: Australian First Nations.

We aim to be a 'living archive' and strive to represent all knowledge in an honest and respectful manner.

On 24 November 2022 (5.45pm), the Centre for Transformative Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology hosted an event at the Hawthorn Campus to celebrate the next phase in the life of the Encyclopedia. For more information see Launch 2022

Adjunct Associate Professor Gavan McCarthy

Exhibitions - selected stories explored in more depth

All exhibitions from 1996 onwards

Other useful resources

Historical Records of Australian Science, Australian Academy of Science and CSIRO Publishing. The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific.
Trove , National Library of Australia. Australia’s free online research portal. Trove is a collaboration between the NLA and hundreds of Partner organisations around Australia, including this Encyclopedia.
History of Australian science, Australian Academy of Science. An introduction to the historical resources of the Academy.
CSIROpedia, CSIRO and Swinburne University of Technology. Innovation shaping Australia and the world since 1916.
IsisCB Explore, An open access discovery service from the History of Science Society; built on 50-years of data in the Isis Bibliography of the History of Science.
Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community. An advanced subject search of "Australia" is good starting point.
Guide to Australian Business Records Archive Edition 2025.This guide provides links to archival and published resources relating to Australian business entities and people involved with those entities.

Data Overview

In all, there are well over 2.3 million data elements captured in 44 data tables. The data can be made available in postgresql format and json-ld courtesy of project with the Australian Research Data Commons.

If you would like to explore the network graph of the links between entities, shown below, go to the SVG view of the data for this edition. Hint: use the sliders to locate the graph - it is large. Also, you can use "Find in the Page" to find Entity ID numbers and use the Zoom function to move in and out. For example: A000200 is the node for the Australian Academy of Science.

Network graph of Entity-Entity relations in latest edition of EOAS