 In March 1921 he was made director of the newly founded Institute of Science and Industry, a forerunner to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).At the 1921 meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science Knibbs was president of the Social and Statistical Science Section, and took as the subject of his address "Statistics in regard to World and Empire development".Two years later he was president of the association and spoke on "Science and its service to man".