I must confess that I haven’t been following the national innovation debate closely. It does seem to me that there are some in principle incompatibilities between:
(1) Industry policy by another name;
(2) Fostering innovation as a behavioural disposition;
(3) Specific attempts to create either new knowledge or research or create the infrastructure and skills which support these efforts.
The default policy reflex seems to be (1) and (2) is very difficult for governments to do directly. Since a lot of this stuff was pioneered here in the Sunshine Smart State, it’s interesting to see Anna Bligh redirect some of the “big picture” stuff and the industry policy money - signalled by the abolition of the Department of State Development and now by a switch in focus from infrastructure to direct funding for research, scholarships and fellowships. This builds on a specific indentification of areas where existing strengths lie, with a view to facilitating further “clustering” - and probably one of the most innovative aspects here is the establishment of selective high schools which focus on particular areas of either industry or research strength or skills and smarts need - the Queensland Academies which so far comprise one for Health Sciences, one for Maths, Science and Technology and one for Creative Industries - all partnered with industry and a particular university.
To its credit, the Queensland government has been evaluating the progress of the strategy and publishing the results.
I wonder if any of our resident policy wonks have any thoughts on the applicability of this model to the national innovation agenda.
What they are doing makes sense, having built the infrastructure, it now can be filled with SMART people. It creates an opportunity for some philanthropic funding of fellowships etc. I believe Chuck Feeny recently visited and is interested in doing something.
I’m also wondering how cutting funding to CSIRO squared with promoting innovation, myself.
There is that!
Robert @ 2 - maybe it promotes innovation at the CSIRO in finding new industry funding sources?!
1. True innovation will come “from left field” - we know that from history.
2. A programme like “The Inventors” demonstrates just how inventive Australians still are; especially in environmental solutions, better ways of doing things & “nifty (& eminently marketable) gadgets”. Yet we know just how frustrating & personally expensive “individual” inventors (ie not uni academics or members of research institutes) find the processes of getting from invention to markets - and how many inventions “go overseas”.
3. University & research institutions are still the best sources of medical & some high-powered (metaphorically) engineering inventions and fine-tuning / “next-step” developments.
From the above (& the myriad of “stuff” I haven’t mentioned) one would conclude that the following would be in Australia’s interests:
A. ABC/ SBS sets up a theoretical equivalent of “The Inventors” which filters, then highlights breakthroughs of similar magnitude in theory - including, perhaps, a “can’t get a guernsey in conferences/ journals, or research grants” segment … Poor Galileo & his Vatican persecutors are very much “alive & well” in universities - just ask the “non-Einsteinian” mathematicians / physicists who had to go to extraordinary lengths (one bought advertisements in the major national newspapers) before their “academic tribes & territories” were prepared to accept their papers at conferences or for publication.
B. There is a great need for a significant national development fund, OUTSIDE established research / marketing structures (& board membership - Feeney, Dick Smith & Richard Branson are far more likely to act in the general interest than those with vested interests) which picks up contestants from The Inventors & a theoretic equivalent, funds and mentors (on HECS principles of repayment) them, their inventions & discoveries through those frustrating steps from marketing to “in-production” (if possible, in Oz, not OS). Such a fund should, after its initial set-up period, be self-funding.
C. Significant funding & other steps should be taken to keep researchers/ inventors & their breakthroughs/ inventions at least BASED in Oz. If the taxpayer funds them; the tax-payer has a financial stake in them!
D. Significant funding should also be available to back breakthroughs/ inventions within established university/ other research institutes (inc government labs) - including ways of funding researchers / thinkers to spend considerable time at the top international centres in their fields. Again, the source of these funds should recoup its investment through a HECS-like system.
A-D above would do a great deal towards redressing Oz’s appalling (& by now decades-long) Im/Balance of Trade deficit. If a Nation’s tax-payers contribute to inventions/ innovations/ developments/ breakthroughs; then the tax-payer is entitled to benefit financially from them.
(Warning: Soapbox time!)
For the last couple of decades, governments have accepted (been brain-washed into accepting) the principle that tax-payer built & owned whatever - utilities, financial institutions, transport vehicles & infrastructure - is NOT FAIR TO MONEY-GRUBBING MULTI-NATIONALS & THEIR $$$MILLIONpa CEOS, & THEIR SHAREHOLDERS; hence public investments (CBA, Telstra, power-supplies, water-supplies trains etc etc etc) should be flogged-off and the money … well … what has been done with most of it? A rational person - even one not ideologically pro-state ownership - would suspect that our governments have become Fifth Columnists for overseas-based MultiNationals (inc those with significant stakes owned by overseas governments, eg China, which play by their own rules).
(End of soapbox rant!)
I think there can be too much focus on “innovation”, per se. I think there needs to be a greater debate about just what “innovation” means in terms of public policy. Innovating, which typically appears to mean a synonym for ‘invention’, I don’t think drives the technological landscape in the way that technology use does. Innovations may like fallow for many years before someone somewhere invents a particular use for the innovation (usually from social drivers). Most of the modern technological marvels; computers, communication, telephony, etc were innovated a long time before they came to transform the cultural landscape. In some ways the cultural landscape had to be right for the transformation before the invention could transform it. Also not enough attention is paid to matters like service and repair (and they are more closely related to usage of technology than innovation of technology).
That’s right. When phones first came to London, people used them to “broadcast” sermons and concerts to homes (which is interesting though the sound quality must have been terrible) and to make messenger services work quicker. It took about two decades for people to start using them to talk to each other.
Yes indeed Kim, and that’s only the primary example. You’ll notice that radio came along a bit later to do exactly what the telephone failed at. I think all this debate about ‘innovation’ frequently misses the crucial question … what can innovation do for us?
Yep, I agree, Tyro. Maybe “innovation” per se is too broad and too narrow a concept at the same time.
“I’m also wondering how cutting funding to CSIRO squared with promoting innovation, myself.”
The CSIRO cut was exactly the same ‘efficiency dividend’ applied to all government departments and agencies. Efficiency dividends apply to all levels of government every year. Nothing new except the magnitude of same.
Robert Merkel says -
“I’m also wondering how cutting funding to CSIRO squared with promoting innovation, myself.”
Tyro Rex says -
“maybe it promotes innovation at the CSIRO in finding new industry funding sources?!”
I can assure you CSIRO and other state based R&D agencies work pretty hard at seeking co-funding.
CSIRO are planning to close 2 research institutes, beef research at Rocky and horticulture research at Mildura. Both of these centers will have a strong focus on applied research where there should be significant potential benefits (if the R&D is any good) for the respective industry and the expectation these days is that the beneficiaries (i.e. the rural industry) should make a significant contribution to the cost of the research. There are mechanisms in agriculture where farmers are compulsorily levied (to overcome market failure) to undertake public good or industry benefit work such as R&D. These funds are administered by Industry R&D Corporations. From personal experience I know that for a number of years the Meat and Livestock Australian has been reducing its investment in R&D (preferring to redirect to other areas such as market protection and development). Applied on-farm beef research in southern Australia is now almost nonexistent. I expect there will be a similar story with HAL (Horticulture Australia Limited). From personal experience I’d say “tough titty” to MLA and HAL for their as usual short term perspectives.
Over recent years the emphasis of government (both state and CSIRO) funding and capacity in agricultural research has been progressively moving up the R&D chain to longer term higher risk and/or public good R&D such as associated with the environment. The rural R&D corporations are struggling to come to grips with this.
There seems to be some confused thinking in some of the threads above, for example invention versus innovation, –
“An important distinction is normally made between invention and innovation. Invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process, while innovation is the first attempt to carry it out into practice” (Fagerberg, 2004: 4)
And then there is the role of R&D that underpins inventions and innovation and the investment of public versus private funds to both conduct the research and support the R&D capability.
wpd, there was a study done some years ago on downsizing or ‘rightsizing’ in industry (I think private industry, but I forget) in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They found that the absolute best way of destroying morale was the salami slice method, repeated, which is what the efficiency dividend does.
In the budget they cut the $700 million Commercial Ready program, which was designed to help business commercialise new technology. They also cut the Business Entrepreneurs program, including small business field officers. Apparently there is no support for small business growth into export markets.
One commenter said that the venture capital industry, which complemented the government funding, had been put into intensive care.
Craig Emerson was left mumbling about the benefits of personal tax cuts to small business operators.
I think the idea is that the new government is having an inquiry into innovation and something may happen to fill the void thereafter. But that’s down the track and budget permitting.
I got most of that info from a cutting I saved from the AFR and a bit from memory.
Well, as long as research and development continue to play second fiddle to other priorities in the budget process, I don’t see that innovation anywhere around the country is going to get terribly far. If it’s true that funding crises such as the drought is taken out of the pocket of R&D, then what hope is there?
Here’s one blueprint for a National Innovation Agenda that looks beyond Big Science and sexy tech to focus on opening up processes, access and channels rather than just trying to pick winners.