The Australian Government's Innovation Report

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Australia’s performance declined in only four indicators between all three scorecards: • US patents per capita (from 54 patents per capita to 52 and now to 51 patents per capita) • investment in ICT as a percentage of gross capital formation (from 26% to 24.7% and then to 22.9% in the 2006 scorecard). Despite this fall, Australia’s ICT investment ranking dropped only one place to be a highly credible 4 th in the OECD and remains nearly 30% above the OECD average. • investment in machinery and equipment (from 8.05% of GDP to 7.98% in the 2004 scorecard and now down to 7.79% of GDP in the 2006 scorecard); and • average annual MFP growth (from 2.4 to 1.4% and now to 1.1%). For only two indicators did the change fluctuate between the periods: • investment in venture capital (from 0.23% of GDP and then up to 0.28% and now to 0.25% of GDP in the 2006 scorecard); and • international science and engineering collaboration (from 113 countries collaborated with down to 106 and then up to 114 countries collaborated with in the 2006 scorecard). Of the five indicators that decreased in nominal terms, two of these indicators, investment in ICT and multifactor productivity, fell at a slower rate between the 2004 and 2006 scorecards than between the 2002 and 2004 scorecards. While investment in venture capital as a percentage of GDP declined, this occurred in a time when venture capital was declining for the entire OECD. In fact, Australian investment in venture capital fell at a substantially slower rate than the OECD average. This is true also for the number of US patents per capita. Even though Australia registered fewer US patents than in previous scorecards, Australia actually improved its OECD ranking by one place. Investment in new equipment also decreased, although the decrease was marginal. Three indicators exhibited higher positive growth, in percentage point terms, between the 2004 and 2006 scorecards than between the 2002 and 2004 scorecards. By magnitude of the increases these were in: • international science and engineering collaboration (13.7 percentage points); • scientific and technical articles (5.1 percentage points); and • broadband subscribers (3 percentage points). Summary of Australia’s innovation performance relative to OECD countries Figure 2 illustrates Australia’s overall innovation performance by comparing Australia’s performance across the 18 indicators with the OECD averages. Australia performed higher than the average in 14 out of the 18 indicators. It also out-performed the OECD average by 50% or more in five indicators. These indicators are science graduates in the labour force, scientific and technical articles per capita, venture capital investments, innovators with collaboration activity and businesses utilising the internet for sales. These findings suggest that Australia is successfully improving the level of scientific human capital, is generating new knowledge and is investing in emerging technologies and start up companies. It also demonstrates a willingness to take advantage of the expanding virtual marketplace and other dynamic networks. Chapter 4 - Australian innovation scorecard 127
FIGURE 2: Australia’s innovation performance in the 2006 scorecard compared to the OECD average Public R&D Scientific & technical articles per capita US patents per capita Business R&D Tertiary education Science graduates in employment aged 25-34 Researchers in labour force Venture capital Investment in ICT Internet usage Broadband subscribers Investment in new equipment Novel innovators with collaboration activity* International S&E collaboration MFP growth 1999-2003 Innovation turnover as a percentage of total sales* Proportion of innovating businesses* Businesses selling over the internet -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 Sources: See Table 13. Percentage difference from OECD (*EU) average Other areas where Australia performed strongly are ICT investment, internet usage, the percentage of the labour force that has a tertiary education, researchers in the labour force and public investment in R&D. Australia’s level of patenting in the US, however, is substantially below the OECD average. Innovation turnover as a percentage of total sales is also considerably below the average as is business expenditure on R&D. On this last point, while business R&D is 18% below the OECD average it is less than 10% below the median as a few high spending nations skew the average considerably. Figure 3 shows Australia’s performance compared to the OECD average for the 2002, 2004 and 2006 scorecards in the 14 indicators that are common to all scorecards. This graph places Australia’s recent comparative performance into a wider historical perspective. 128 Backing Australia’s Ability
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2006 07 The Australian Government
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ISBN: 0 642 77 675x ISBN: 0 642 77
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Enhancing industrial R&D 44 R&D Tax
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PRIORITY 3 - FRONTIER TECHNOLOGIES
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8 Backing Australia’s Ability
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FRDC GDP GERD GGAP GOVERD GRDC HECS
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12 Backing Australia’s Ability
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The year also saw significant outco
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The Australian Innovation Scorecard
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Table 1: Australian Government supp
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The Australian Government’s inves
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Sustaining funding for government r
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• Key to Australasian liverwort a
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Australian Institute of Marine Scie
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Coral gives new insight into changi
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• As part of the joint Careers in
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Developing meaningful, long-term co
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Defence Science and Technology Orga
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In 2005-06, Geoscience Australia st
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The majority of research-related pu
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The successful proposals represent
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In addition to the continued large
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Enhancing industrial R&D R&D Tax Co
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• improving the management of nat
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Food Innovation Grants Programme As
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Most facilities provide training pr
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Total funding for the ISL programme
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Improving research quality and acce
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PART 2 - Accelerating the commercia
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Pooled Development Funds The Pooled
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In 2005-06, $12.83 million was inve
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Table 9: Sectoral distribution of C
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Building on ICT strengths Advanced
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Other achievements included: • ge
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Seafood Services Australia Ltd An I
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Interest in ITOL and e-business rem
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• provision of a business develop
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Building links to facilitate commer
Page 77 and 78: Taking a closer look at stem cells
Page 79 and 80: Biotechnology Australia Public Awar
Page 81 and 82: • commercialisation seminars for
Page 83 and 84: Advancing SET skills Audit of Scien
Page 85 and 86: National Youth Science Forum The Na
Page 87 and 88: Mathematics and informatics In 2005
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Page 91 and 92: Fostering entrepreneurship and awar
Page 93 and 94: Skilled Immigration Migration conti
Page 95 and 96: ANSTO’s Dr Tony Taylor with the m
Page 97 and 98: The millimetre wave radar stope mon
Page 99 and 100: Sustainable use of Australia’s bi
Page 101 and 102: New techniques assist exploration c
Page 103 and 104: Pushing the heater bank used to run
Page 105 and 106: The diagnostic tool uses a unique a
Page 107 and 108: The researchers anticipate that the
Page 109 and 110: Advanced materials Quick dry merino
Page 111 and 112: Promoting an innovation culture and
Page 113 and 114: Dairy for Tomorrow launch in Tasman
Page 115 and 116: David Griffin (left) and Andreas Sc
Page 117 and 118: Scientists are searching for an eff
Page 119 and 120: Clearinghouse-type websites are cur
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Page 123 and 124: The scorecard provides an overview
Page 125 and 126: Notes: 1. Australia’s ranking is
Page 127: FIGURE 1: Percentage change in the
Page 131 and 132: Compared to the 2004 scorecard Aust
Page 133 and 134: FIGURE 6: Number of scientific and
Page 135 and 136: FIGURE 9: Percentage of the workfor
Page 137 and 138: Knowledge Diffusion Investment in I
Page 139 and 140: FIGURE 16: Investment in new equipm
Page 141 and 142: Percentage of Turnover Attributed t
Page 143 and 144: Conclusions The Australian Innovati
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Page 147 and 148: • promoting and marketing industr
Page 149 and 150: Australian Bureau of Statistics The
Page 151 and 152: Informing the future House of Repre
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Page 155 and 156: Appendix 1: Major flows of funding
Page 157 and 158: Appendix 3: Overview of Australia
Page 159 and 160: Appendix 4: Backing Australia’s A
Page 161 and 162: Appendix 5: Overview of R&D in regi
Page 163 and 164: Appendix 7: National Research Prior
Page 165 and 166: CRC for Spatial Information http://
Page 167 and 168: Desert Knowledge CRC http://www.des
Page 169 and 170: ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision
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The Australian Government's Innovation Report

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