ANU vice-chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt used the annual state of the university address to outline four goals for 2025.

The vice-chancellor said the university would get a financial return on research by establishing a unicorn - a privately-owned startup company worth more than a billion US dollars.

It comes after the university sector as a whole lost $1.8 billion in revenue and cut about 17,300 jobs in 2020 as income from international students was drastically reduced.

A spokesman from the ANU said the company would most likely emerge out of deep tech and would need to be based on a strong business case.

The university is exploring a range of options, including micro-wearable medical devices, quantum computing, software and applications for data, precision measurement and scientific testing platforms and renewable energy.

There are only about 500 companies in the world classed as unicorns, making the plan to create one within five years highly ambitious.

Professor Schmidt said he was often asked what the public got back from the money it invested in universities.

"I believe we can state it incredibly simply: by discovering the true nature of things, our work protects our land, saves our lives, and creates higher levels of human happiness and wellbeing.

"It also creates economic activity, prosperity and jobs, which is why one of our targets for 2025 is going to be establishing a unicorn - a company worth over a billion dollars - as well as a pipeline of smaller companies with a combined worth of another billion dollars."

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Professor Schmidt called for a "renewed compact" with the federal government, emphasising that the special grants the university received were needed more than ever before.

The ANU is the only university to receive the National Institutes Grant which is worth about $200 million per year, with funding guaranteed until 2023.

"The old tensions between the Australian polity and the Australian academy must now be recognised as an indulgence belonging to less dangerous times," he said.

"The consequences of university knowledge and political leadership not working together are now simply too high."

The vice-chancellor also called on ANU teaching staff to rethink their methods after they were forced to switch to remote learning last year.

"Let's face it, it would be easy to make the university into an online supermarket of inexpensively delivered courses and divert the savings into research or other funds.

"My response to that is: Over my dead body.

"The very last thing we must do at this time when universities must display moral leadership is to disillusion and disappoint our teachers and students and supporters."

August marks ANU's 75^th year and the launch of the next strategic plan.

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