INDUSTRY & RESEARCH
campusreview.com.au
R
esearch funds should be allocated based on success at
commercialisation, as well as research quality, the new
chair of Innovation Australia says.
Speaking to Campus Review, Ferris reiterates the federal
government’s message of establishing a more innovative nation.
He says roughly three-quarters of Australian businesses lack an
“innovation culture” and Australia is struggling to keep up with its
competitors in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development in this space.
To boost Australia’s innovation, universities should be encouraged
to get greater engagement with industry and demonstrate more of
their research's impact in terms of benefits to the community and
commercial outcomes.
“[Universities and research institutes] get their monies largely
based on the quality of their research,” Ferris says. “We also
need to see [data] about the impact – call it commercialisation
– of some of this research, as part of the criteria for allocating
resources to researchers around the country. Until we get that, we
probably won’t get much behavioural shift.”
Business also needs to rethink how it can improve its
collaboration efforts with researchers, Ferris says, and he
acknowledges that many corporations already engage with this.
Corporate risk taking is essential to harnessing the disruptive
opportunities research offers.
Here, Ferris discusses the historical hurdles to innovation within
Australian culture and how the country might overcome them.
CR: Bill, the Australian Innovation System Report 2015 was released
in November. What was its key message?
BF: I think the key message was the fact that we continue to
be great researchers but not great commercialisers. We are
struggling to stay in the top 30 of the OECD nations in terms of
any commercialisation metrics. The lack of access to venture
development funds and skilled people are still the two main
barriers to innovation in this country for all young, and certainly
small, businesses. Indeed, the report points out that 75 per cent of
all Australian businesses have basically no innovation culture at all.
The report showed that Australian start-ups are being innovative.
How do we get older businesses doing the same?
It’s part of the whole risk-taking attitude throughout Australian
business and the community in general. I think a lot of big and
medium-sized businesses are actively engaging in how they can
harness disruptive technologies and other competitive threats,
rather than just put their heads in the sand. It’s going to be a topdown and bottom-up exercise as to how you do that, how you
access research, how you access new things and take the chance,
take the risk with new money and new skills and new people.
[There is recognition now] of a need for innovation – from
start-ups to small business and big business.
You’ve been quoted as saying Australia suffers from a fear of failure.
Can you explain this?
I’d start with two or three points. History gives you some clues,
because we have been a small-market economy, a long way away
from markets of any size. So it’s rational behaviour to be careful if
you are a business person employing people and thinking about
investing in capital et cetera. It’s rational behaviour to take care in
those circumstances.
Now you fast forward to an increasingly digital, web-based
economy for many products and services that can be distributed
far and wide electronically. In those sectors, we’re starting to see
some of the risk-aversion and fear of failure disappearing.
The bankruptcy laws are another intimidation that still prevails.
They began in colonial days, with quite draconian jail sentences
and treatment for people who, whether wittingly or unwittingly,
had a go and went broke, leaving unpaid creditors. Distinguishing
between an honest failure and a fraudulent one isn’t easy but it
is a fundamentally important difference not always recognised in
our insolvency laws. I’m not suggesting we be quick to remove
appropriate protections, I’m just trying to explain why I think there
has been this innate fear of failure.
The third point is that as a result of all of that, there is a
centuries-old notion that if you try and fail, it’s a badge of shame
and disgrace at a social level, whereas it might be a badge of
honour in cultures such as the US or Israel and elsewhere. We
have to deal with that.
How do you think we change that attitude moving forward?
I think the younger generation and th