The Australian Government's Innovation Report

Conclusions
The Australian Innovation Scorecard 2006 provides a snapshot of Australia’s innovation performance relative to other
OECD economies. Being third in the series, it is also possible in some instances to look at Australia’s performance
over time.
Australia improved its performance between the 2004 and 2006 scorecards in nine of the 14 common indicators
and decreased in five. Increases were spread over most of the categories of innovation covered by the scorecard
with the greatest increases being in broadband subscribers and internet usage, two knowledge diffusion
indicators, and in science graduates per 100 000 in the workforce aged 25-34, a human resources indicator.
Substantial increases also occurred in the number of scientific and technical articles per million of the population
and in both business and public R&D expenditures, all of which are knowledge creation indicators. There
were also increases in the percentage of the labour force with tertiary education, number of researchers, both human
resources indicators, and the breadth of international science and engineering collaboration, which is a collaboration
indicator. Australia’s performance decreased in investment in new equipment and investment in ICT, two knowledge
diffusion indicators, average annual multifactor productivity growth, an indicator of market outcomes and in
investment in venture capital, a finance indicator.
Over half of the 14 indicators improved in each of the scorecards since 2002. The most notable was broadband
subscribers per one thousand of the population, which showed a substantial increase in both the 2004-2006
and the earlier 2002-2004 period.
Compared to the OECD average in the 2006 scorecard, Australia ranked among the top 10 OECD countries
in 12 out of the 18 indicators, performing above the average in 14 indicators and below in four. Australia
performed well above the average in a number of areas, including investment in venture capital as a percentage
of GDP, science and technical articles per million of the population, science graduates, broadband subscribers,
innovating businesses with collaboration activity and businesses selling over the internet. Australia was below
the average in four areas, most notably in the number of US patents per million of the population and
innovation turnover as a percentage of sales. However, in some areas where Australia’s performance is below
the OECD average, our performance relative to the OECD average and OECD ranking has improved in the
2006 scorecard compared to the 2004 scorecard.
Overall, the Australian Innovation Scorecard 2006 shows that Australia’s innovation performance has been steadily
improving in many areas and compares favourably with the OECD averages. This bodes well for Australia’s
ability to capitalise on innovative people, processes and technologies.
142 Backing Australia’s Ability