A decade of impact: the NSSN turns 10

The NSSN marks ten years in July 2026. Over the past decade, the NSW Smart Sensing Network has become a powerful example of how coordinated research, industry partnership and government support can translate cutting-edge science into real-world impact. In this Op-Ed, NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte reflects on the Network’s origins, achievements and the priorities shaping the next decade of sensing innovation in NSW.

This article launches a special series marking the NSSN’s 10th anniversary.

Ten years ago, my predecessor Professor Mary O’Kane was piecing together a unique model to harness NSW’s research strengths.

Mary reasoned that world‑class sensing science, connected across our universities and aligned with the needs of government and industry, could deliver practical solutions to some of our state’s toughest challenges.

Prof Hugh Durrant-Whyte

Thus, the first of what would become the NSW Research Networks was born.

In July 2016, with strong support from the Office of the Chief Scientist & Engineer, the NSW Government founded the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) to turn that idea into reality – translating smart sensing research into highly impactful real‑world outcomes.

The Network’s founding Co‑Directors, University of Sydney Nano Institute Director Professor Benjamin Eggleton and UNSW Sydney’s Scientia Professor Justin Gooding, built early momentum with Mary’s encouragement and support.

A decade on, the result is a uniquely NSW success story. Today the NSSN is co‑led by Professor Ben Eggleton and Professor Julien Epps, backed by strong governance and operations, including Board Chair Jo White and Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Haskins.

What has remained constant is the Network’s mission: to focus the attention of leading researchers on problems that matter, and to help to help industry partners move from concept to deployment and commercialisation.

That mission has attracted significant investment and national attention.

The NSSN is part of a group of 37 university and industry partners leading the establishment of the $24M ARC Research Hub for Connected Sensors for Health. Credit: Shutterstock

A standout example is the ARC Research Hub for Connected Sensors for Health – a $24 million initiative catalysed with the NSSN’s support, and since strengthened by an additional $5 million from the Australian Research Council.

The Hub is building and exporting cyber‑secure, connected health sensors – technology that promises earlier detection, better care at home and new opportunities for NSW’s med‑tech sector.

Of equal importance is the NSSN’s record of solving practical problems for NSW Government partners and councils in areas of pressing public concern.

Consider air quality. Low‑cost sensors have proliferated worldwide, but quality, calibration and data use can vary widely.

Working with planning and environment agencies, the OPENAIR project set out to establish best‑practice methods for council‑led sensing and decision‑making.

The OPENAIR project revolutionises air quality monitoring – empowering local governments to take action on this pressing issue. Credit: Shutterstock

With a total program value of $2.4 million – including $1.78 million from the NSW Government – OPENAIR didn’t just deploy devices; it produced resources that now sit within the NSW Smart Places Strategy, giving local governments the tools to plan, deploy and interpret data with confidence.

Water is another key environmental area where the NSSN has turned sensing into service.

In partnership with Sydney Water, the NSSN coordinated the $3.4 million Advanced Pipe Sensing to Reduce Leaks and Breaks project to detect leaks and assess pipe condition on live networks.

The program brings together a unique set of technologies – quantum sensing and gravity methods alongside acoustic sensing, LiDAR and analytics – to identify problems before they become bursts, water loss or service interruptions.

The Advanced Pipe Sensing project delivered novel sensing solutions to the water industry to reduce leaks and breaks in underground pipe infrastructure and reduce water loss. Credit: Shutterstock

This unique approach of bringing together cutting-edge science to improve operational reality has become a hallmark of the NSSN.

Beyond pipes, water security demands a system‑wide view. The NSSN project Where is All the Water? has developed a sensing‑and‑data roadmap to improve how we locate and understand water movement across catchments – a vital tool for integrated water planning in a drying and flooding climate.

Complementing this, optical remote sensing in the water column aims to generate near‑real‑time water‑quality measurements without the long delays typically caused by probe biofouling.

Faster, cleaner data enables better, more prompt decision-making for our waterways.

NSSN innovations now protect communities in times of heightened bushfire crisis.

Their work has advanced instantaneous detection of high‑risk lightning using novel detectors and machine learning to pinpoint the strikes most likely to cause ignition – giving fire services critical minutes to act.

The Network has also supported autonomous smoke‑detection drones, ingeniously leveraging Sydney Water reservoir infrastructure to widen our aerial situational awareness when it matters most.

These are tangible, field‑ready advances employing sensing to make NSW safer.

This safeguarding extends to our state’s fauna. Koala populations are notoriously hard to monitor at scale.

The EcoEar project is helping to monitor koala populations in NSW using smart acoustic sensing technology.

By combining acoustic sensing with machine learning, projects supported by the NSSN have reported around 50 per cent greater detection accuracy than conventional methods, providing a powerful tool for conservation planners.

Developed in response to a challenge posed through my office’s Small Business Innovation & Research Program, the EcoEar device takes this a step further.

This AI-powered edge device ‘wakes up’ and records only when it hears a koala call, delivering succinct labelled detections.

Contrast this with the terabytes of raw audio provided through conventional monitoring, most of which is empty recording punctuated by infrequent calls.

For biodiversity researchers, this massive timesaving means they can focus their attention on proactive analysis and action.

Turning research into reality

What ties these efforts together is not just highly innovative technology, but a unique way of working.

The NSSN brings together the right people – researchers, engineers, companies, local government, utilities, health districts – and then de‑risks the path from lab to adoption.

That’s how you turn a promising sensor into a project that a council can run, a utility can rely on, a clinician can trust or a conservation team can deploy in the field.

It’s also how you build capability here in NSW, so that the next generation of sensing companies and researchers choose to grow in our state.

Looking ahead, three priorities stand out.

First, trust. As sensing becomes ubiquitous – from health wearables to city infrastructure – we must keep security, privacy and data quality at the centre.

The Connected Health Sensors Hub shows NSW can lead in cyber‑secure sensing; we should apply that standard across domains.

Second, scale. Programs like OPENAIR, Advanced Pipe Sensing and koala monitoring have proven value.

The next step is to move from pilots to platforms – shared methodologies, open resources where appropriate, and repeatable deployments that accelerate the benefits of the NSSN’s innovations to councils, utilities and agencies across the state, but also with national and international potential.

The Where is All the Water? project used sensing and data to track water across catchments, supporting smarter planning in a changing climate. Credit: Shutterstock

Third, integration. The real power emerges when we connect sensing across systems: water, energy, transport, health and environment.

Where is All the Water?is as much about data architecture as devices; the same is true for smoke detection or lightning analytics feeding into emergency operations.

The NSSN is uniquely positioned to bring these disparate datasets together.

On the NSSN’s 10th birthday year, my thanks go to the founders who set the vision, to the current leaders in Ben and Julien, and their governance and operations teams who keep the Network moving; and to the many partners who have placed trust in the NSSN to solve real-world problems.

Most of all, my congratulations go to the researchers, engineers and students whose curiosity, ingenuity and persistence have delivered such tangible public value.

A decade ago, we set out to prove that smart sensing could make NSW safer, healthier, more sustainable and more productive.

The evidence is now in our pipes and our reservoirs, in council dashboards and hospital corridors, and in the quiet bushland where koalas call.

 Here’s to the next decade of sensing – practical, trusted and proudly developed in NSW.