 Thank you Chancellor. I'm glad you're still calling me new and welcome colleagues. I start this morning by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet in work and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history and I pay my deepest respects to the elders of the Nunnawal people past and present like Tina who welcomed us here today. This year may still be young but it is already seen unprecedented political change. As we confront unsettling times we should remember that this university was founded and came into its own in the aftermath of the chaos of World War II. We are in a time of potential global upheaval and we must of course vigorously uphold our values. But the world around us, 7.4 billion people and counting stretched over a planet a mere 13,000 kilometers across, can ill afford us to be solely focused on the now. What we do here at the ANU is important. What we do here is essential. We actively help shape the world that coming generations will inherit. Today ANU sits at a crossroad. We have reached a point in time when critical decisions must be made about our future. We can be a good Australian University or we can be a great national university. But if we're going to be a great national university we're going to have to change how we conduct our business as usual. If there is anything that I've learned in my first year as vice chancellor it is that change is hard. It is scary but it can be liberating. If we are going to fulfill our role as the national university this university has to change and it has to look different five years from now than it does today. This does not mean people losing their jobs. It means us doing things differently. It means us shaping the university differently. Our 70-year journey has validated the courage, vision and ambitions of our founders. We have a proud record of distinctive and world-changing research. A remarkable cohort of graduates who inform and shape the world and a legacy of engagement that has helped transform society and our nation. But just as our country and the world transitions to a time of uncertainty, ANU too must adapt and be ready to face new challenges with audacity and enterprise. Through our research, our teaching and our outreach we must elevate our distinctive place in Australia and the world. We as a community have articulated a set of values as central to our identity. These values are set out first in the strategic plan that most of you have in your hands because these values are the basis of all that we do. We bring distinctive excellence to our work and have the confidence to pursue original ideas. We are inclusive, open and respectful, reflecting the diversity of our nation. We are committed to integrity and ethical behavior. We value, enable, reward and celebrate collegiality. We embrace informed risk-taking in pursuit of our objectives. And finally, we are committed to better outcomes for our community, the environment, our nation and the world. Over the next five to ten years, we are going to have hard decisions to make. We will have a changing environment around us. But we will never compromise on these values. Now last year, we shared our ambitions and collective vision for the future of ANU. This year, we start to work on transforming our future. And it's a future where we will pursue excellence in everything we do. We do research for the nation and world that changes society. We provide a distinctively excellent education. And we will uphold equity and equality of opportunity for all who join our community. We will cultivate a campus worthy of the nation's capital and great national institution. And finally, we will foster a high level of collegiality. Today, it is my great honor to introduce our new ANU strategic plan, our roadmap for the next five years. It guides us towards working collectively and individually to create the contemporary national university. Now, as Gareth indicated, this plan was born out of one of the largest community consultations undertaken at ANU. And I thank you, each one of you, from every part of this institution for taking part in the forums and workshops, putting careful thought to work and sharing your ideas for our university. I particularly want to acknowledge the chancellor and members of the university council who are our partners in this plan. We want to rise to the challenge of being a national university that serves our society and reflects our society in all of its diversity. Over the year, the same theme kept presenting itself, that we must invest in and insist on excellence everywhere and everything that we do. As a place of learning and research, we must refuse to accept mediocrity. But what is excellence? Well, that's something we actually must understand, from research excellence to teaching excellence and impact excellence. And it's not going to be the same for every part of the university. But it does need to be understood at each department at each school. And that is one of our goals this year, to define what we believe excellence is and shine a spotlight on each and every one of us and hold ourselves to that standard, that community standard. We must find new sources of funding to support what we do in this excellence. That means growing our income from philanthropy, attracting investment from business and foundations and other parts of civil society by demonstrating the value of our work. We must, of course, spend our money where it makes a difference, where it supports excellence, where we do work that not only leads the world, but also can change the world. As part of this plan, we will invest new money in five globally significant research challenges, which you have to help define and seek to provide solutions to national priorities. This will enable us to bring together researchers from across the university to work together on problems where we really can change the world. Now there is a great deal of pride in this institution amongst our staff and our students and our alumni in what we've achieved and what we stand for just 70 years into our history. I ask you all to take the voice survey late last year and 68% of you did. Thank you. What I learned is that compared to other universities, this university values research, and we value our colleagues ability to do research much more than others. And that pride does not mean that we are perfect, but it does give us a platform from which to confront our challenges. And those challenges are real. The same voice survey told us we weren't very good at change. It tells us that our processes need improvement and that we need to work better across the university. And I'm listening to you and those are priority areas for us to work on now. As the nation's university, we are privileged to receive dedicated funding and support from the Australian government. That funding has allowed us to do great things, but we should never take our special status for granted. We are entrusted with a responsibility and an expectation to deliver the highest quality and highest impact research for our nation. We want to be recognized unambiguously as one of the world's great universities. But to do that, we're going to have to adapt to achieve excellence in all that we do. We want our research to contribute to the economic and general public good. And so we must translate our research in partnership with the private sector in civil society where appropriate. Research of course remains at the heart of what we do. And great research requires support itself. And we are going to endeavor to provide the right support and rewards for our staff to do great work and not take you for granted. We will nurture future researchers and shape our research training to ensure that our people are second to none. Their qualifications are universally recognized and understood to be of the very highest global quality. And they are prepared to be leaders, not just in academia, but in industry and civil society. We are going to invest in recruiting, retaining and mentoring these best people in the world, all of you. The ANU futures scheme will attract new world leading early and mid career researchers to ANU, at least 50% of whom will be women, providing them with startup grants to support their research and help leverage external support as we prepare them and enable them to be great. These young researchers will be selected from the most talented people in the world. And the university is going to support on supporting all of its staff to be excellent. For example, women are half of the population. But they are still not represented in equal numbers at our senior levels. I am deeply committed to ensuring that women achieve a full promise of their careers, academic and professional at ANU. But to achieve gender equity, we need a cultural shift. There is no silver bullet, rather a need for a fundamental elimination of bias and exclusion from every aspect of the university. To help us, the Australian sage Athena Swan program provides a framework of reflection, but also action. Now at the heart of every great research university, there is a great educational program. And I want ANU to provide an education unlike that offered by any other Australian university and equal to the best in the world. ANU is home to some of Australia's brightest and best academics. And teachers also who push the boundaries and expectations of learning, ensuring that the next generation of society's thinkers are flexible, adaptable, and innovative. But to truly stand apart from other universities, we need to do more to innovate in the way we teach and engage our students. We need to reinvent education led by evidence and provide support resources and space for you to find new and better ways to foster learning. We need to revitalize our learning and teaching infrastructure, beginning with state of the art facilities at Union Court, and begin a major refresh of our digital infrastructure. We will formally recognize and invest in innovation and education, as well as our very best teachers through the Distinguished Educators Program, which will be launched shortly, and the creation of an Institute for Innovation in Higher Education. We need to make sure that this great education is not limited to a small subset of society, but open to people from all backgrounds and experiences from across Australia, from around the world, those who have the talent and potential to succeed. Over recent years, we have seen significant growth in philanthropy-based programs that support students from such diverse backgrounds. These include the scholarship programs like the Tuckwell Scholars, the A&U Love Scholarship, and the Chenapati and Vijya Jagadish Endowment Fund, amongst many others. All of these change lives, but we do need more. There is incredible strength in such diversity. When we get this right, not only will our graduates be ready and prepared to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world, they will know that they had a great education and that they are lifelong members of an extraordinary community. To get the diversity we seek, we also need to change the way universities admit students. And starting in 2018, we will begin changing our admissions so that ATAR is not the only consideration for entry to A&U. And to get the community so essential for a great university experience, we need to provide an opportunity for all students who want to live on campus, including students with families. This week, students from Bruce Hall are moving into brand new accommodation while we build a new Bruce Hall and a sister hall. We are building another student residence in Union Court, and that means we will have three new residential buildings open over the next two years. We've already begun planning for the next two student residences after that. One of the reasons the brightest people want to come here from around the country is that they see how important A&U is to the progress of our nation. When the governments of the 1940s and 1950s invested in the establishment of A&U, they envisaged a special role for our academics, one where they would help build our nation side by side with government into a country that could confidently stand alongside the great nations of the world. Since then, A&U has been instrumental in providing frank and fearless advice based on our expertise to policymakers and political leaders. We have helped shape this nation. Our academics have provided the intellectual foundation for some of the country's most fundamental reforms, such as HEX, climate policy, the foundation of APEC, and the establishment of Medicare. We find ourselves in 2017, as the old apocryphal curse reportedly goes, living in interesting times. We have both an opportunity, but also a responsibility to make sure that the expertise of the National University is put to use helping the institutions of politics and government navigate what are certainly going to be tricky waters. So that when the next young A&U academic identifies a novel solution to a wicked policy problem, we want them to have the opportunity to take that idea to government and to be part of seeing that idea become real policy, to work within government, to work with government, and to know that it will enrich their academic career. We have to be willing to take risk, and for that reason we are creating a policy incubator that will allow us to explore ideas too risky for government yet to invest in. By harnessing the research breadth of A&U and offering solutions to complex policy issues confronting the nation and our region, this incubator connected to a broad policy hub that spans the breadth of A&U will support and foster academic engagement with government. And this means everyone has an opportunity to participate. No one at this university is working on things that don't matter. A contemporary A&U is not here just to serve government. By working with business and industry we can now multiply our impact. The relationship between universities and industry is often criticized. So to help us break down the barriers our new business advisory council will help guide us in our efforts to forge a mutually beneficial partnership with business and industry. But we also need to change the culture here at A&U and embed within us people who have successfully worked with business and industry. You will see that last week we announced the appointment of Genevieve Bell a world leading anthropologist but also a senior leader at Intel. We will be making more appointments like that. Of course exciting research does not just happen at universities it also happens now in business and by working with business we can multiply our opportunities to do interesting and important work. We will continue to attract and reward more entrepreneurial expertise at A&U and do much more to develop and reward entrepreneurial activity to support staff to form effective partnerships that see their ideas have real impact. We will make it easy to pursue great ideas and welcome you back to academia after you've spent some time in the business world and celebrate and recognize your experience. No longer is a one-way trip out of the university. In our national capital we sit alongside many of Australia's other national institutions. Our neighbor is another great Australian research institution CSIRO. Imagine the opportunities if we are able to link our campuses and work more closely together. Now we've already started with data 61 and the Center for Genomics Metabolomics and Bio Informatics but that is just the beginning of what is possible. We will continue to grow our collaborations with our fellow national institution collaborations that have already seen us work with for example the National Library on an extraordinary exhibition of historical Chinese maps launched last year. For decades host with Questacon the Science Circus work with the War Memorial on the anniversary of World War I and more recently we've joined with the National Museum Museum of Australian Democracy, the National Library and the National Portrait Gallery as founders of the Canberra's Writers Festival. Philanthropy provides us the means to undertake many of the ambitions I've described today. Over time for example the Tuckwill gift will fully fund hundreds of students each year at ANU. Philanthropy can support research and outreach that governments won't. It is the not-so-secret advantage that the great universities of the world use to have impact. We too need to have philanthropy and we are going to support you to connect your ideas with donors who will support those ideas coming to fruition. Now in this hall a year ago I began my first speech as vice chancellor with a commitment that ANU as the nation's university will play a leadership role in the reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Over the past seven decades we have contributed to the advancement of Australia's indigenous peoples but there is a long way to go. To live up to our obligation as the national university we need to make ANU the destination of choice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander intellectual leaders as a place of education, of research, of policy and of reconciliation and we will redouble our efforts to recruit talented indigenous Australians here. We are targeting a comprehensive pathway from undergraduate to professor from management cadet to university executive. For example our indigenous postdoctoral fellowships program will attract and invest in talented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctoral graduates who have the potential to become academic leaders in their discipline area. We are fortunate to be the guardians of a large and beautiful campus here in Acton as well as others across Australia. These are on lands for which indigenous people have been custodians for thousands of years and actually Tina Brown just before I came out here was telling me some stories I had never heard of this campus we all have so much to learn. We know our beautiful campus is unsurpassed and much loved by the entire community. Everything we do to our campus now and into the future will respect its history, its culture and natural beauty. In the words of our Chancellor our campus needs to have timeless elegance and we will honor that Chancellor. This year we begin the enormous and enormously exciting project of a revitalizing the heart of ANU Union Court so that it becomes a thriving center of social, educational and entrepreneurial activity. I've just gone through part of our strategic plan. This strategic plan will guide and empower us to be the great university our nation needs us to be and I encourage you to read your copy. It's not long but it will help you understand some of the opportunities for you to contribute in this joint project. I also want to remind you that the strategic plan is a guide. It by no means represents all that we can and all that we will do. Finally I want to reflect on what I see is the key theme that kept emerging from our discussions with you in my first year. We want to be more collegial. We want to be part of a university that is not confined by its structures and organization. We want to be free to connect and collaborate across disciplines and in partnership with industry, government and society. We want an environment that encourages and supports collaboration collegiality one that will enable interdisciplinary work to flourish. We need to continue to work across disciplines to address the most pressing challenges facing our world and break down the walls of isolation amongst units across the university. It means many things but it also means having events like today and an event like our commencement ceremony next week where I hope to see all of you joining me with me in welcoming our newest students to campus. That is very important to me. They are part of the family. You are part of that family. These are traditions that bring us together and mark the passage of the university year. It's a time to share a drink and a sandwich with a colleague who you may not actually have ever met before but it also means actually being part of this university family throughout the year. So now let's start the year as we mean to continue. Please come and join me and your other colleagues for a barbecue lunch and talk to people about the state of the university, the state of our country, the state of the universe from your unique and broad perspectives. Learn from your colleagues that is the great part of being at a great university. Thank you very much. Thank you Brian for an address which was substantive, challenging, stimulating to us all. Let's now have that drink and a sandwich at the barbecue across the way and talk to each other about what we've just heard and about the task ahead. This is a great university, not only a great Australian university but a great world university. We're very proud of it and I think we now have the substance, the material, the dynamism, the energy, the commitment to go forward and to really, really ensure that we go on being one of the great universities that will in the future. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Brian again for a splendid address. Thank you to everyone who's worked on the creation of this plan and let's now get on with the job of implementing it. Thank you so much.