Supporting entrepreneurship and innovation in Australia

• Author: Matthew Fenech
• Position: Director, Continuous Improvement & Innovation Business Improvement and Support Centre, IP Australia

The Australian economy – along with many other developed economies - is undergoing a transition. Manufacturing as a contributor to Gross Domestic Product and employment creation is in decline (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australian national accounts: national income expenditure and product, cat. no. 5206.0). While in recent years Australia has enjoyed a resources boom that has brought significant prosperity, this is now losing strength. In future, the services sector and knowledge-intensive industries will need to make a bigger contribution to economic growth and job creation if Australia’s economy is to maintain prosperity. Innovation is central to successfully making this transition.

Public sector investment in research is relatively strong in Australia, especially in the university sector. Translating this investment into innovation in business and the broader economy is central to promoting growth and job creation.

The Global Innovation Index however, reveals low levels of collaboration between research and industry in Australia. Paradoxically, Australia's AUD9.7 billion annual public spending on research yields a research output that ranks in the top eight in the world, according to the 2015 World Economic Forum (WEF) competitiveness rankings. Yet Australia ranks a poor 25th in its capacity for innovation – commercializing ideas – according to the WEF, and ranks at the bottom out of 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for collaboration between publicly funded researchers and industry.

To increase Australia’s global competitiveness and productivity, the Australian Government developed the Boosting Commercial Returns from Research strategy to promote greater collaboration between industry and researchers. IP plays an important role in this agenda with the development of initiatives including the IP Toolkit and Source IP, both aimed at enhancing collaboration.

IP Toolkit

The IP Toolkit seeks to remove barriers to collaboration between businesses, researchers and research organizations by simplifying and demystifying management of IP. It provides:

Guides – to provide information for getting started and designing a collaboration.

Model tools – to help maximize the outputs of each collaboration (including checklists, a model confidentiality agreement, and model term sheet.

Model contracts – a long form version for higher value and more complex collaborations (e.g. joint IP ownership) and a...