Friday 29 August 2008
Innovation reviewed, let’s get moving again!
The Australian government review into the national innovation system has now tabled its green paper (yes, it really is green). It is a good review, one that holistically examines the status quo in
From the AIC's perspective, some important recommendations are:
1) Support innovation in private firms as an explicit priority e.g. by facilitating connections between firms and other institutions and increasing competencies of firms
2) Increase collaboration across the innovation system e.g. through the expansion of Enterprise Connect, a new Knowledge Connections program, or the portfolio of collaboration and linkage programs
3) Better integration of the numerous disparate government innovation assistance programs e.g. by more thorough policy evaluation and refashioning of federal relations
4) Increase industry access to public research organisation expertise and capability e.g. through a pilot linkage voucher scheme
5) Increase innovation, collaboration and commercialisation skills in
6) Take a whole of government approach to using the large public sector engine as an innovation driver, both on the demand and supply side e.g. through procurement practices and a focus on a National Information Strategy.
Producing the green paper wasn’t all manual work. For an innovation system that treats commercialisation of research like a poor second cousin (and a cousin with leprosy in the case of universities), it is ironic that it was Leximancer, a software product commercialised by the
Leximancer is a data mining program that examined the key themes and concerns in over 700 submissions to the review, mapping them against the three stakeholder quadrants from which they were sourced – governments, research organisations and businesses. Whereas a coherent innovation ecosystem would show convergence between the themes clustering around the origin, this review revealed a donut. A big ‘hole’ existed in the centre, with themes polarised in each of the stakeholder quadrants. There was very limited agreement between the three groups on the language of innovation (we have always maintained our TechFast program provides as one of its important and hitherto unrecognised, functions that of translation). It was as if
Which makes getting on with the job even more critical. Reports from all quarters indicate that as the economy heads south, the hiatus in the innovation ecosystem is quite unsettling. Intensifying with the untimely axing of the Commercial Ready program in May 2008, many growth firms have found themselves starved of co-investment and growth capital during the review period and organisations like the AIC cut off from Federal government programs. Commercial Ready is recommended to be replaced with a Competitive Innovation Grants Program, providing loans to be repaid from royalties or future earning streams.
The only solution to merging three innovation systems into one is facilitated collaboration. The innovation review has confirmed the value of improving collaboration between industry and research organisations. Collaboration is not easy, for we know that internationally, Australian industry collaborates very poorly with the research sector – in fact, the worst of all developed economies. It’s partly about people, so the emphasis on human capital and skills development is critical. Not just research skills, but conversion and translation skills as well. Receptiveness and the absorptive capacity of business also needs improving and company boards should play a role here. Innovation is based on serving a market, it also needs to be demand-led. Independent intermediaries between small businesses and the research sector can connect and facilitate demand-driven collaborations by improving access, bridging cultures, sharing trust and getting projects off the ground. We hope that the expansion of Enterprise Connect and the other recommendations will achieve this.
The focus on collaboration to fill in the ‘hole’ in the donut is therefore neither surprising, nor news. For almost four years the AIC has been quietly building collaborations between SMEs and the research sector through our TechFast program and between government and industry through our Government Innovation Services group. The challenge has always been one of scale and longer-term government commitment to these activities. Whilst these are highly successful programs, an organisation the size of the AIC cannot provide these services on a scale large enough to induce the cultural change necessary to achieve a meaningful impact without Commonwealth support.
What are your views? If you're an SME, what would you do with an Innovation Voucher? Would you reveal your company innovation strategy to an employee from Enterprise Connect? There is still a chance to provide your comments on the recommendations before the green paper turns white and Cabinet makes up its mind. Write to us at info@ausicom.com before September 22 with your views and we will make sure they're heard. The full copy of the Green Paper is available at: http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx
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