Research Study on Public Support for Science and Innovation

Australia has enjoyed recent economic prosperity. By global standards, Australia is an affluent, but relatively small market. However, accelerating global integration is changing forever the volume and composition of international trade. To achieve international competitiveness, many Australian organisations must produce for the global market to achieve the necessary economies of scale and scope. Focussing on the domestic market not only limits growth opportunities, it can handicap competitiveness¹. In addition, Australia is facing a major intergenerational change that will place significant pressure on Australian society to maintain its economic prosperity. Against this background of global change, intergenerational change and the knowledge economy, Australia must find ways to generate competitive advantage to increase output in order to sustain society. Clearly, one major focus for Australia must be to be a major innovating society to increase wealth for the benefit of society.

Governments play an important role in the national innovation system. Traditionally their missions have been to fund and perform research and thereby expand the pool of scientific knowledge for the benefit of society at large and to support R&D activities in areas where market mechanisms were inappropriate or insufficient to respond to social demands or meet specific government objectives. The fulfilment of these missions has formed the basis of a social contract that bound science and society and provided the main rationale for public investment in scientific research via publicly funded research institutions. A recent statement on the social contract was that “the practice of scientific research and the use of knowledge from that research should always aim at the welfare of humankind and for the benefit of the global environment, and that it should take fully into account our responsibility towards present and future generations.” ²

Over time, and especially in the past decade, science systems in most OECD countries have faced new challenges. These challenges have led to calls for reforms in the Government’s role in supporting research and the governance of science systems. The main challenge has been for science systems to respond better to a more diverse set of stakeholders, including the interface between science systems and industrial innovation.³ The Academy notes the recent House of Representatives report on innovation⁴ and broadly supports the recommendations contained therein.

ATSE considers the Productivity Commission’s study into “Public Support for Science and Innovation in Australia” as a most important initiative and is very relevant to the focus of the Academy. In recent years the Academy has organised a number of seminars, conducted a National Symposium and made a submission to the House of Representatives inquiry Pathways to Technological Innovation.

The Academy’s submission is founded on data and information pertaining to the innovation system. A summary of some of the key aspects of the data is contained in the submission attachments.