The Australian Government's Innovation Report

Summary of Australia’s innovation performance against each category
Knowledge Creation
Public Sector R&D
Figure 5 shows that Australia ranked 6 th and was significantly (23%) above the OECD average for public
expenditure on R&D. This high ranking reflects the continued growth of expenditure in Australia on R&D
in the higher education and government sectors. Expenditure was 0.78% of GDP in the 2006 scorecard,
compared to 0.77% in the 2004 scorecard and 0.76% in the 2002 scorecard.
FIGURE 5: Public expenditure on R&D as a percentage of DGP compared to the OECD average
Percentage difference from the OECD average
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
Iceland
Finland
Source: OECD, ABS. Data from 2004 or latest available year.
Scientific and Technical Articles
Sweden
Canada
Denmark
Australia
France
Netherlands
Germany
Norway
Japan
Switzerland
Austria
United States
New Zealand
Korea
United Kingdom
Belgium
Italy
Spain
Hungary
Turkey
Czech Republic
Greece
Portugal
Ireland
Poland
Mexico
Slovak Republic
Luxembourg
The number of scientific and technical articles published per million of the population is a measure of a nation’s
ability to generate new knowledge, and provides an indication of the potential for the development of
innovative products, services and technologies. In the 2006 scorecard Australia registered 1279 scientific and
technical articles per million of the population (an increase on the 1154 articles in the 2004 scorecard).
Figure 6 shows that Australia ranked 10 th in the OECD and was substantially (67%) above the OECD average.
Chapter 4 - Australian innovation scorecard 131