National Policy for Innovation

| November 23, 2007

Open Forum would like to hear your thoughts on the recently proposed National Innovation Policy (NIP), the national agenda for a more innovative Australia. Your responses will help formulate future steps and activities the Society for Knolwedge Economics (SKE) will be undertaking in furthering Australia’s Innovation Agenda. 

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Open Forum would like to hear your thoughts on the recently proposed National Innovation Policy (NIP), the national agenda for a more innovative Australia.

Your responses will help formulate future steps and activities the Society for Knolwedge Economics (SKE) will be undertaking in furthering Australia’s Innovation Agenda. 

To see our "Innovation Attitudes in Australia" Survey Report, click here.

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The roots of innovation and entrepreneurship lie deeper in the social fabric than many innovation strategies and ‘systems’ seem to understand. Whilst many innovation strategies and policies focus on the development of technical and scientific skills, many leave out the ‘softer’ side, or the social fabric, of a nation’s innovation system.

Yet, a nation’s social value system – the beliefs, attitudes, spirit, values, and culture of its people – is often an important facilitating factor of innovation and creativity in society and business. 

The Society for Knowledge Economics (SKE) recently proposed that the Australian culture and our social value system represent important enablers in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in society.  

The question that remains unanswered is whether Australia has a social value system that encourages and celebrates innovation and entrepreneurship in all aspects of societal life. 

Last year, Victorian Premier John Brumby led a group of twenty-eight state and federal level representatives in calling for the institutionalisation of a National Innovation Agenda (NIA), a coordinated national approach to boosting Australia's innovation system, productivity and economic growth prospects. 

Mr Brumby’s proposal outlined five key focus areas: 

  1. Increasing incentives for business innovation;
  2. Building a new innovation infrastructure;
  3. Developing skills for the innovation economy;
  4. Creating a better regulatory environment for innovation; and
  5. Forging better connections and collaboration. 

In response, the SKE suggested the sixth, and most crucial, area for action:

Fostering a culture and a value system that promote innovation, with a National Barometer for Measuring Innovation Attitudes in Australia as a starting point. 

To help progress the discussion for the National Policy of Innovation, Open Forum is calling for your contribution. 

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0 Comments

  1. olgabodrova

    January 22, 2008 at 10:11 pm

    Do we need a federal Minister for Innovation?

    I don't see why we need a separate portfolio for innovation as it is clearly a cross jurisdictional matter. Every sector of the Australian economy would benefit from innovative approaches and creativity and these should by all means be encouraged across all sectors and built into relevant policies. If the country would like to embrace innovation as a national agenda, wouldn't it make more sense to run it through the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet which looks after intergovernmental relations and "takes a particular responsibility for policy coordination" across the whole of the government system?

    It's not a Minster for Innovation Australia desperately needs but a Minister for Culture and the Arts, to finally give these areas a prominence and a focused attention they deserve. I find it strange that the arts in Australian Government so far have been hanging at the back end of such portfolios as Communication, IT and now the Environment. What does music have to do with water supply?

  2. DaS Energy

    February 12, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Innovation Supression

    Hear hear for previous comments promoting innovation.

    Politicians past and present have thundered the need for innovation, but like all dry storms they have been much noise of promise with no delivery.

    Mums and Dads as well business people innovate nearly every day just to keep bread on the table.

    However when one looks at the records of present and past Politicians they opppose innovation as innovation means change, and with all change one thing ceases to exist and a new thing is borne.

    This creates discord as the old owners dont want to lose the old, and the new belongs to new owners. The same as new tractor owner owes nothing to the old horse breeder, the innovation owner owes nothing to the Politician who helped gain Government grant or put up his hand for sudsidies to the old inefficient ways.

    A prime example of this is Polticians actions over innovation in energy. If it provides more energy than now 24/7 but uses less Coal or Oil it receives no Political backing. 

    Throughout history Australian innovation has occurred the wrath of those in possition of power, this especialy being the case in the armed services.

    In order to break this this cycle we the people must let the Politicians know we are awake to them and go to the polls with one veiw no matter what is put about by the Politicians as being more important, and that is assistance to innovation, not just more of the smoke screen talkfests and subsidies for inefficiency. 

    ABARE Government report September 2007 describes it as suppression, and is right on the mark about how Politicians go about it.

  3. Nick Mallory

    February 21, 2008 at 11:10 am

    Innovation and entrepreneurship

    A distinction needs to be drawn between the creation of fresh concepts and new technology and the entrepreneurial skills required to fashion those raw ideas into economically successful products and companies. There is no necessary connection between the two equally valuable talents and often no intersection in social or psychological terms between the boffins in glasses and businessmen in sharp suits. British engineers laid the ground for many of the breakthroughs which shaped the twentieth century but, while South East Asia's manufacturing giants flourished and bloomed, once famous British firms fell into a terminal decline for which obstructive trades unions and blinkered, feeble management were as culpable as each other.

    The role of the modern government is increasingly that of a facilitator, rather than a provider of services. The Government's Innovation Policy should create forums and virtual marketplaces in which inventors and businessmen can find each other and forge mutually beneficial relationships because attempts by politicians or civil servants to 'pick winners' have abjectly failed at every previous juncture. Intelligence has often been defined as the ability to put two seemingly unrelated ideas together to create a new synthesis. An intelligent Government department would act as a catalyst to match flint and fuel, then retire to watch the sparks fly.

    Far beyond the remit of a single Government department, a brighter future rests on the fostering of a social climate in which excellence is exalted and the profit motive lauded not despised. Most young people now attend some form of college yet all too often in the socially diverse but politically homogeneous ranks of modern academia opinions which go against the grain are rejected as thought crimes, objective truth itself is belittled as just another hegemonistic paradigm, the concept of merit itself is questioned and the evil nature of capitalism is an unstated, unexamined starting point for any discussion on any topic at all. Our universities produce a glut of unemployable media studies graduates and all too few qualified engineers or hungry businessmen. The entrepreneurial spirit of those newly arrived in this country puts that of those born here with every advantage to shame. Encouraging a culture in which robust competition in the free market of ideas and commerce are celebrated rather than apologised for by our elites must be a task for us all. A politically correct 'all must have prizes' approach on the initial rungs of an educational system which then revels in its rejection of science, capitalism and the western enlightenment at its heights does little overall to foster the doggedness, attention to detail and passion for excellence which, despite their other manifest differences, all inventors and entrepreneurs must share.

    Indeed, innovating thinking should be fostered at the earliest age. Children create innovative solutions to problems they encounter for the first time all the time, yet all too often find their imagination and energy blunted by over protective parents and the stultifying demands of established educational practise. It is telling that hugely expensive attempts by media leviathans to protect their products through DRM have been routinely cracked by teenage hackers armed only with youthful vitality, rather than the huge budgets, lengthy mission statements, massive offices, long lunches and secretarial support of their lumbering foes. There is a vast amount of energy and talent out there on 'the internets' which could be turned to the benefit of industry instead of being fought by its more reactionary elements at every turn. The Australian Government's much vaunted $85 million dollar porn filter was cracked almost immediately by sixteen-year-old Tom Wood, for instance, and despite spending $15 million dollars on advertising the Department in question now admits that less than 30,000 of the filters are actually being used. Each 'free' porn filter has cost the Australian taxpayer over $2,800 therefore and any teenager can download the means to crack it in less time than it takes to click back onto wikipedia whenever mum's footsteps are heard on the landing.

    We should look for innovative solutions not from established think tanks or commercial R and D departments but by soliciting 'open source' solutions through the provision of performance based incentives. A government which offers ten billion dollars as a "Mars Prize" for any private concern which can land men on the Red Planet and return them safely will gain better value for its taxpayers than spending ten times that amount on a state project inevitably hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia, political game playing and an over zealous health and safety officer class.

    Finally it should be remembered that failure is the handmaiden of success. Most millionaires have lost their shirts many times before they buy their first island while a dozen rockets crash in flames before one can reach the stars. Such failures, be they ignored or headline making at the time, are instantly forgotten once ultimate success is achieved. Beyond that, research for its own sake is never wasted. The seeds of success often sprout in forgotten, unexpected corners. In the interests of short term efficiency, research which is not tied to a specific problem or commercial area is often downgraded or abandoned in public and private sectors alike, but many highly profitable technologies have been the unforeseen byproducts of research aimed at entirely different areas, just as viagra was originally developed as a heart medicine. If we want a better mouse trap we should give the man who wants to make one a shed, a spanner and peace and quiet to get on with it. He may invent a better ion drive instead.

  4. msweeks@cisco.com

    April 6, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    Nice one..but a question?

    I am writing a submission to the Innovation Review which has these two quotes at the top:

    "Innovators…focus on creating things the world has never seen.  They systematically disregard boundaries – whether of nation, academic discipline or social status – to the predictable annoyance of those who consider it their responsibility to keep boundaries in place. 

    An irony results: while the world clamours for innovation, it tends to deprive innovators of the resources and recognition that would maximise their potential to transform society for the better.  The challenge of innovation in the 21st century is therefore also about reshaping societies to be not only tolerant, but actually welcoming, of innovators."

    Klaus Schwab and Pamela Hartigan, Social Innovators with a Business Case

    "Our economic prosperity and society's well-being will not depend on mass manufacturing, military might, natural resources, cheap labour or financial capital. Our future will turn on how we develop, attract, retain and mobilize creativity from all sources within our society and apply creativity systematically in all walks of life, from health and education, to arts and business, science and industry."

    Charles Leadbeater, The Ten Habits of Mass Innovation

     They will give you an idea of some of the lines of argument we're developing as we put in a plea for the review to give some thought to the underlying shift from an ego-centric (or institutional) model to a network-centric model as the basis for a new approach to the tasks of innovation Nick has outlined.

    Question though – isn't it true that it is often government that can fund the kind of 'pure' research and investigation from which amazing spin-off ideas and eventually world-changing products emerge?  The Internet, of course, is just such a venture.

    It is still true that we need to figure out exactly what the enabling role and contriibution of government actually entails.

    I must admit that mention of a Minister of Innovation and even the whole idea of reviewing and then trying to design a National Innovation System (whose inevitably capitalisation must give some pause for concern) might in themselves be strong signals that we've missed the point. 

    Martin Stewart-Weeks

    msweeks@cisco.com

  5. boydroge

    April 10, 2008 at 3:03 am

    Commercial Ready Program

    Whilst one could be cynical on the organisation of a forum in this day in age, where everyone talks over each other & often the brightist thoughts are kept from being heard, I don't envy the task, & hope it doesn't become just a talk fest with many actions that never really get done.

    One aspect I would like to see improve is the Commercial Ready Program & general grants programs. Whilst a good idea in principal I don't think people with generally limited business experience (customer service people at Ausindustry & the like) & committees are best positioned to decide whether or not an idea should get commercial backing in the form of a grant & I think it results in a lot of expenditure on things with limited commerical potential.

    If we want to maximise the value from the grant expenditure I suggest it would be a better idea to link matching funds to the successful attraction of private or venture capital equity. If private equity or venture capitalist entities have signed on you can bet that the idea has gone through a fairly rigorous review (most of the time, no system is perfect) & has a higher chance of market success. If matching funds were relatively easy to come by subsequent to private equity or venture capital signing on more money would become available from the private sector to entrepreneurs in the proof of concept through to commercialisation & growth stages (if I am a private equity investor & I know I can put 1 million to get 2 million in (perhaps 500k of that is for private equity shares & half goes to the principal), why wouldn't I, & why wouldn't I take some bigger bets on more innovative concepts?). Further, private equity & venture capitalists do all the work on ideas or companies any way so why duplicate it in governement? A simple, fast, sign off procedure according to some pre defined boundaries would be better (which the private equity & venture capitalists can become the experts in applying for). If Grants schemes were operated in the above manner it would mean more focused expenditure, & more risk taking from the private sector on commercially viable ideas (or alternatively backing a larger portfolio), less costs in governement & therefore more money coming into innovation (no committees & long sign off procedure). Essentially it would be about working together with the private sector to maximise expenditure on commercially viable innovation.

    Some might say that early stage concepts would then struggle, but even early stage concepts (if good) will get the backing & have higher chances of success if private equity (angels) are on board.

    I think government needs to think carefully about their role in all this. My view is that they should be a facilitator & not do the doing. They are not the experts at innovation & shouldn't pretend to be, nor should they think that they have greater or longer term vision.

    Should ideas that can't attract private equity funding not get a grant? My view, no they shouldn't if you want to maximise the billions of $'s in grants expenditure each year & make this a trully innovative country with a strong link to positive commercial outcomes. If people think it's hard to get private equity, there is a commercial discipline reason for that, & the role of government should be to make it easier, not stand in as quasi private equity people with no strong "skin in the game" in terms of commercial outcomes.

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