The architect behind some of the Coast’s most transformative economic development projects has taken on a new challenge with the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC).
Paul Martins has been appointed UniSC’s inaugural director of strategic partnerships, a role that reflects a growing focus by Australian universities on strengthening ties with industry, government and investors to ensure research translates into economic and community outcomes.
Mr Martins brings more than a decade of economic development leadership across the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay councils, most recently serving as Chief Economic Development Officer at City of Moreton Bay, where he secured more than $600 million in investment, created thousands of jobs and led nationally recognised innovation programs.
His career has also included senior executive roles spanning international trade, diplomacy and the private sector.
“I’d worked with the university on and off for more than 10 years when I was in industry and then both councils,” Mr Martins said.
“I just saw the good it did. I had a great relationship with the vice-chancellor and a lot of the researchers and academics, and I thought I could make a difference by connecting them to opportunities they perhaps hadn’t encountered.”
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb.
Mr Martins is overseeing a broad portfolio spanning three key areas: government relations, industry engagement and innovation programs, while also supporting the commercialisation of university research.
At its core, however, he said the job was “fundamentally about connection”.
While leading economic development at Sunshine Coast Council, he worked across the partnerships that secured the international submarine cable landing at Maroochydore – a project that established the region as Australia’s first outside a capital city to host a direct international broadband connection and laid the foundations for a growing digital economy.
He also spearheaded the successful bid to establish the Sunshine Coast Lightning in the national Super Netball competition, bringing together council, the university and corporate partners to secure the region’s first elite national sporting team.
“Those initiatives never get off the ground in isolation,” he said.
“As the saying goes, it takes a village.”
Mr Martins said UniSC was uniquely placed to help local businesses solve practical issues amid technological changes that many could not tackle alone.
That work ranges from helping organisations transition vehicle fleets to electric vehicles through practical planning workshops, to world-leading research investigating how native seaweeds can dramatically reduce methane emissions from cattle, or how compounds found in spider venom could help combat the destructive varroa mite threatening Australia’s honey bee industry.
“There are more than 35,000 businesses across the Sunshine Coast,” he said.
“If we’re only helping 10 per cent of those, that’s 3,500 businesses that can become more productive.”
One of Mr Martins’ immediate priorities will be reshaping the university’s Innovation Centre and accelerator programs following Advanced Queensland funding for new Future Skills Labs focused on robotics, drones, digital health, clean technologies and advanced manufacturing.
The programs are designed to help existing businesses adopt emerging technologies while supporting start-ups and entrepreneurs commercialise new ideas.
“I think there’s an opportunity through the university to take great manufacturing businesses and help them become great advanced manufacturing businesses,” he said.
Rather than viewing the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games as the destination, Mr Martins said the focus needed to be on ensuring businesses remained globally competitive long after the event.
Among the region’s greatest competitive advantages, Mr Martins points to the combination of the Sunshine Coast’s twin international submarine cables and UniSC’s planned quantum computing capability at its Moreton Bay campus.
“When you connect those submarine cables with the quantum capability at Moreton Bay, that’s a real point of difference,” he said.
“I can see research being done in areas that haven’t been done before in Australia because of those two assets.”
Mr Martins’ immediate challenge is ensuring more businesses understand what sits on their doorstep.
“The university is one of the Sunshine Coast’s greatest assets,” he said.
“We’ve had thousands of new residents and thousands of new businesses arrive since COVID. Many simply don’t know what’s possible here.
“My job is to help connect them.”
