This is what I came to recognise having presented the WSAA paper at the Innovation Papers event held in Canberra on the 4th of August.
As an industry we often overplay the conservative, risk averse nature as being unique and often responsible for the lack of progress on innovation. Listening to the other speakers from other industries, it very quickly became clear the extent to which our challenges are not unique. The ability to support innovation is challenging across all industries. In addition to the frustration of a focus on commercialising research, a significant gap was the entrepreneurship capability and support to bridge research, scale and uptake to create value along the innovation chain.
The WSAA paper, Towards a connected national innovation ecosystem* was well received. It highlighted the transition required to connect and leverage cross industry networks to drive impacts and respond to the significant challenges and uncertainty we face. The opportunity we have is to build on the awareness we have created. We are now looking at how we work collectively with other industries and agencies. Given we’re all in the same boat, we now need to chart a course to a flourishing Australia.
*The paper was co-authored by Jason Mingo, Dr Greg Ryan, Dr Dale Watson and James Gardner of WSAA
1 Sep 2022
