The Minns government wants to co-invest with universities to turn research into startups, though the money won’t move until after the next state election.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey announced a $150 million Science and Innovation Fund at the Sydney Investment Summit this week, the latest move in the government’s NSW science, technology and innovation agenda, aimed at commercialising university research and creating new startup spinouts.
The fund will co-invest alongside NSW public universities before expanding to other organisations across the state’s science, technology and innovation sector. Mookhey gave no detail on individual investment sizes, co-investment requirements, or how startups will apply for funding.
Why now
The announcement responds to the Pounder Review, an independent look at the state’s technology and innovation ecosystem led by former Tech Council chief Kate Pounder and released alongside the Innovation Blueprint 2035.
The review found NSW generates more tech unicorns than any other Australian state and captured 57 per cent of national venture capital investment between 2000 and 2024, worth US$15 billion, despite the state accounting for just 31 per cent of national GDP. That’s twice what Victoria, the next-closest state, attracted over the same period.
Innovative companies in NSW add $39 billion in gross value each year and put 136,000 people to work, more than mining and agriculture combined, even though they make up only 1.8 per cent of businesses in the state. The review’s conclusion: the state is strong on research, weaker at turning that research into products.
Mookhey said the framework was designed to connect those strengths so more NSW ideas turn into growing businesses, better services and well-paid jobs.
The catch
Here is the detail that separates this fund from a done deal. The fund is due to begin operating in July 2027, and its first investment round is contingent on the Minns government winning a second term at the March 13, 2027, state election.
That is roughly six months out from a vote. NSW Labour is not guaranteed to win. Every other detail released this week, including the chief scientist’s involvement and the co-investment model, sits on top of that condition. It is a $150 million commitment that currently exists as a policy promise, not a budget line.
Universities line up to welcome it
Vice-chancellors from across the state’s university sector responded within hours of the announcement.
Professor Andrew Parfitt, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney and convenor of the NSW Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, said the investment recognised the role universities play in driving innovation and would help translate research into new industries, jobs and opportunities for the state.
UNSW Chancellor Warwick Negus AM described universities as engines of discovery, economic growth and innovation, and said the university welcomed strategic investment that would open up new opportunities for research commercialisation.
University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott framed it as unfinished business, saying great ideas should not stop at the laboratory door and that the fund was a chance to build a more connected and ambitious innovation system for NSW, not just a new pool of money.
Western Sydney University Vice-Chancellor George Williams pointed to results already on the board through the university’s own incubator, Launchpad, which connects students, researchers and entrepreneurs turning ideas into businesses and growth industries.
NSW Minister for Finance Courtney Houssos, a UNSW alumna, said the fund would draw on work already happening on campus, including research into solar panel recycling, and described the spending as a careful investment of taxpayer funds made in partnership with universities.
Not NSW’s first run at this problem
This is not the first attempt by the New South Wales Government to close the lab-to-market gap, and any assessment of NSW science, technology and innovation spending will likely measure this fund against a mixed track record.
The Perrottet government set up a $703 million Future Economy Fund for research commercialisation and business growth back in 2022, only for the programme to be quietly stripped back within months, according to reporting at the time. The NSW Physical Sciences Fund, now in its fourth year, has handed out grants as small as $5 million split between four companies at a time.
More recently, the government has stacked several smaller programmes on top of each other: a $20 million Emerging Technologies Commercialisation Fund, a $6 million Innovative Manufacturing Adoption Fund opened for applications in August, and $6 million was tipped into the MVP Ventures startup grant programme. Compared to that patchwork, a single $150 million vehicle focused on university spinouts is a step up in both size and structure, assuming the government is still in office to fund it.
Universities have also been building capability on their own. UNSW says it launched 25 new spinout companies in 2025 alone and topped Knowledge Commercialisation Australasia’s national survey of research commercialisation activity that year.
Who runs it
NSW Treasury, Investment NSW and NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte will work with public universities to design the fund’s governance settings before any investment round opens.
Minister for Innovation, Science and Technology Anoulack Chanthivong said the state’s approach to NSW science, technology and innovation policy comes down to keeping the financial upside onshore, arguing that every discovery commercialised in NSW means more investment, more jobs and more economic value staying in the state.
Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education Steve Whan said the fund targets a specific, well-known failure point, describing it as a way to help researchers bridge the gap between a laboratory breakthrough and a product that’s actually ready for the market.
Whether that gap gets bridged with $150 million of NSW science, technology and innovation funding depends on what happens at the ballot box on March 13, 2027.
