Inspiring Australia

Inspiring Australia is an Australian national strategy for engagement with the sciences. Its goals include improving science communication and helping engage the Australian community with science. Inspiring Australia has rolled out a range of programs and expanded existing ones to help achieve its goals, including publishing reports from expert working groups, a Science Engagement Toolkit, Prime Minister's Prizes for Science and National Science Week.

A similar initiative in the UK is the British Council, which runs science projects to communicate messages around exciting or topical scientific issues, focusing on science and sustainability.

In February 2010 Senator Kim Carr, the then Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research launched the Inspiring Australia report at the Australian Science Communicators conference at the Australian National University in Canberra. The report detailed 14 recommendations to fulfill four overarching principles.

Inspiring Australia was included in the Australian Labor Party's Science for Australia's Future policy for the August 2010 federal election. During the campaign the Coalition also committed to funding the new initiative.

In May 2011 Minister Carr announced that "Australians will be encouraged to study and excel in science and research through a new Inspiring Australia program in the 2011-12 Budget." The launch promised Inspiring Australia would coordinate the efforts of Australia’s research agencies, media outlets, universities, academies, professional bodies, the business sector, state-based science centres, museums, and community-based organisations. According to the departmental media release, the three-year $21 million Inspiring Australia program was designed to "help bring science to every Australian, regardless of geography, ethnicity, age or social condition".

In 2012 the new Minister for Science and Research, Senator Chris Evans, announced $5 million in grants for Inspiring Australia projects across the country.

At Science Meets Parliament in September 2012, Shadow Minister for Science Sophie Mirabella referred to the Inspiring Australia program as a bipartisan initiative.

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