Towards 3% R&D: Solving our innovation struggle
Towards 3% R&D: Solving our innovation struggle
Australia’s current approach to innovation is placing us at risk of irrelevance unless we commit to a cohesive national innovation plan, says BDO in Australia.
The call to fix our innovation system comes as experts from industry, academia, and government contribute to an eBook titled Towards 3% R&D, produced in collaboration with @AuManufacturing.
The eBook details the issues plaguing the current innovation ecosystem, but - importantly - offers potential solutions to our innovation crisis.
Ryan Pollett, BDO’s National Leader for Manufacturing & Wholesale, says Australia’s spend of 1.68 per cent of GDP on R&D - well below the OECD average of 2.8 percent - is emblematic of the nation’s disjointed approach to innovation.
“In our daily conversations with manufacturing clients and industry contacts, it’s clear that Australia’s disparate, multi-layered and siloed approach to innovation is congesting the way forward with red tape,” says Pollett.
“The result is an ongoing fall in R&D spending that hampers our national innovation efforts and leaves us at serious risk of losing the knowledge and skills we need to protect our sovereign capabilities and remain internationally competitive.
“International examples show us that where a sense of urgency and a national imperative exist, turbocharged innovation efforts follow. The US, China, and Europe - among others - are throwing huge sums of money at the issue, and we must move now to prevent being left behind.”
Pollett says the eBook, which explores challenges and solutions for Australia’s innovation decline, is essential reading for those who are committed to reversing this trend.
“We encourage Australia’s industry leaders, politicians and policymakers to give serious consideration to the issues and ideas raised by the contributors to this eBook,” says Pollett.
“The submissions are diverse, thought-provoking, insightful and broadly optimistic – but also firm in the shared message that we must do better.”