Goal #9

What comes first – innovation or infrastructure?

If you had to struggle daily to feed and clothe yourself and your family, would you have the time and energy to care about the sustainability of clothing manufacturers or the degradation of arable land? While innovation leads to improvements in infrastructure, infrastructure is often required for innovation to take place. Currently, more than half of the world's population is online and almost all of the world's population has mobile phone coverage. However, real infrastructure improvements such as quality water and electricity systems, effective road networks and advancements in manufacturing are required to enable sustainable and resilient innovation and development, particularly in developing countries.

In this video, Dr Sarah Grundy from the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW breaks down some of the key challenges behind SDG #9.

Industry, innovation, social engagement and global impact

Design Next spans four faculties and over 30,000 students. It is supported by expert staff with access to world class facilities and invites partners from commercial, public sector, community and not-for-profit organisations to engage with us to improve the value and effectiveness of products and services.

Design Next would like to work with industry to ensure every student leaves UNSW with a strong foundation and appreciation of design that combines multi-disciplinary knowledge, complex technical skills and other important skillsets including communication, project management, and teamwork.

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Design Next is UNSW’s centre for integrated design, bringing our engineering, architecture, business, and art and design capabilities together in a world-class learning environment.

UNSW Strategy in Action 2025

Universities are at the heart of the sophisticated global knowledge system shaping our future and UNSW has a key role to play. We aspire to improve lives globally through partnerships, innovative research, transformative education and commitment to a just society. With this context in mind, we believe the strategic priorities of Academic Excellence, Innovation and Engagement, and Social Impact, have become increasingly important to address the key challenges we face.

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The ongoing work and achievements of our community help propel us towards our vision.

World 1st

Professor Veena Sahajwalla opened the world’s first e-waste MICROfactorie^TMin 2018 at UNSW’s Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT Centre).

$1 Billion

UNSW invested record amounts of capital in infrastructure since 2015, totalling almost $1 Billion.

Underway

Large-scale health and innovation precincts are under development with multi-sector partners including Randwick Health and Education Precinct & Liverpool Innovation Precinct.

UNSW 2025 Strategy Update

This document celebrates the key achievements of the first phase of the 2025 Strategy, highlighting where we have come from and where we are now. It also updates the framework against which we will assess, track and measure existing and new strategic initiatives over the next five years.

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UNSW Environmental Sustainability Plan

UNSW has a history of environmental stewardship across research, learning & teaching and campus operations across several decades. The Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP) will build on past achievements, while raising our ambition levels to meet the environmental challenges of today.

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Publications & Reports

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Engineering Ethics in the Age of Digital Advancement

The future of multiple industries is being impacted through the advancement of digitisation and AI. Our Civil Engineering industry is no different and the future holds significant change and opportunity as technology plays an ever-increasing role in our work. This advancement also brings up the question of ethics as we are asked to help shape this new future. What will this technology look like? How do we ethically build a model that works at all levels and inspires trust within our communities? And the biggest question of all, how do we become greater ethical engineers ourselves?

Learn more in this Q&A with industry and academic experts.

UNSW Materials and Manufacturing Futures Institute

Many future challenges can be addressed with advanced materials and manufacturing technologies. The UNSW Materials & Manufacturing Futures Institute will transform materials and manufacturing research by transitioning serendipity-driven materials research methodology to property-driven materials design.

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Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety

Facilitates advanced research in all aspects of civil engineering infrastructure, including building structures, bridges, tunnels, roads, railways, pavements and materials.

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Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation

Unites the wide range of transport research at UNSW and aims to pursue globally-leading interdisciplinary solutions for transport planning and management for positive societal impact.

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UNSW Founders Program

UNSW Founders' 2025 Vision is to embed an entrepreneurial ethos in our students, staff and alumni, to build a creative and resourceful generation of forward-thinking, wealth-creating, environmentally conscious and socially engaged individuals. To enable this vision, programs span the full entrepreneurial journey, from curiosity to start-up.

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