KEY POINTS
- Australia’s Innovation Agenda, Powering Ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century, was released on 12 May 2009.
- Powering Ideas sets a 10-year reform agenda to make Australia more productive and more competitive.
- Through Powering Ideas the Australian Government has set innovation priorities and strengthened coordination to improve skills and expand research capacity, to increase incentives for innovation in business, government and the community sector, and to boost collaboration over the next ten years.
- Powering Ideas outlines actions that the Australian Government has already taken to boost Australia’s innovation system, as well as new proposals to improve innovation within the research, business and public sectors including reforms to the governance of the system.
- There has been a strong boost for research with significant investment in research infrastructure, designed to ensure Australia stays at the forefront of international research in key areas. This is part of an ongoing investment into research infrastructure by the Australian Government to support collaboration and give Australian researchers access to the latest technology.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Investment
The Government’s investment in Science and Innovation in the 2010-11 budget has increased to $8.92 billion compared with $8.41 billion in 2009-10. The 2009-10 budget was an increase of $1.24 billion from 2008-09.
National Innovation Priorities
The Australian Government recognises that Australia’s resources are finite. To make the most of them Australia needs to focus on problems we are uniquely placed to solve, and opportunities Australia is uniquely placed to grasp – this means setting priorities.
Powering Ideas has adopted seven equally important National Innovation Priorities to focus the production, diffusion and application of new knowledge. They address Australia’s long-term weakness in business innovation and in collaboration between researchers and industry. The priorities complement Australia’s National Research Priorities.
The priorities are:
- Priority 1: Public research funding supports high-quality research that addresses national challenges and opens up new opportunities.
- Priority 2: Australia has a strong base of skilled researchers to support the national research effort in both the public and private sectors.
- Priority 3: The innovation system fosters industries of the future, securing value from the commercialisation of Australian research and development.
- Priority 4: More effective dissemination of new technologies, processes and ideas increases innovation across the economy, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Priority 5: The innovation system encourages a culture of collaboration within the research sector and between researchers and industry.
- Priority 6: Australian researchers and businesses are involved in more international collaborations on research and development.
- Priority 7: The public and community sectors work with others in the innovation system to improve policy development and service delivery.
More information on initiatives outlined in Powering Ideas can be found in the following fact sheets: