The dairy industry is an important rural industry and confers significant social and economic benefits to Australia. The future prospects of the dairy industry will depend on making productivity gains to counteract declining terms of trade at the farm level. The ‘Dairy Science 2006’ symposium featured plenary papers on platform technologies forecast to deliver large gains in farm productivity, on a national project designed to accelerate adoption of technologies and on functional foods. This paper summarises the potential benefits this research and development might offer to the dairy industry, and the time it might take to realise these benefits.