Malcolm Turnbull to spend more than $1bn on new scheme to promote Australian innovation
Malcolm Turnbull
In this cross-posting from The Conversation Michelle Grattan sets out what the government’s new $1bn innovation fund will look like.
The government’s innovation statement on Monday will pledge more than $1 billion in new spending over four years on measures to foster an innovative, risk-taking culture in Australia.
In Malcolm Turnbull’s first major policy initiative, 24 measures will cover four priority areas: culture and capital, skills and talent, business and research collaboration, and the role of government as an exemplar.
Full relief from capital gains tax will be given for investments in startups that are held for three years or more.
There will also be incentives in the form of tax offsets for investments in startups. A broad definition will be given for what startups would be eligible, but the detail would be settled after consultations with the startup sector and investors early next year.
The plan is modelled on the United Kingdom’s Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) which offers tax benefits to investors in small and early stage startup businesses. SEIS was started several years ago with the aim of boosting economic growth by promoting new enterprises and entrepreneurship.
The focus on improving collaboration between business and academia is against a background of Australia sitting for many years at last or second last among OECD countries in this area.
In a stick and carrot approach, the government will use as a lever altering the incentives that fund academic research. Currently, the prime emphasis for attracting funds is on publishing research that is cited in academic journals. There is not a funding incentive to commercialise the academic work or engage with business.
The changed emphasis in funding will be accompanied by a modest amount of extra money for universities that were short term losers from the new arrangement.
On the business side, existing programs will be ramped up to get business to engage more with academia.
As part of promoting talent and improving skills, there will be more funds for schools and students in the crucial areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and computing.
A new entrepreneur visa will be introduced to help attract talent from overseas, and initiatives will encourage more of the thousands of foreign students graduating at masters-by-research and doctorate level in STEM and computing areas to stay in Australia.
The need to encourage risk taking and to accept that some failures are an inevitable part of an innovative culture are core to the statement’s approach. Israel is seen as one example of a country that is a success story in fostering ideas and startups. The Assistant Minister for Innovation, Wyatt Roy, has just returned from a fact-finding trip there.
Michelle Grattan is professorial fellow at the University of Canberra
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Great initiative….but brain gain sounds very close to brain drain 😉
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Optimism is good. It’s so much better to be reading about innovation than the death cult.
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“Internet Australia applauds the support for innovation coming from both sides of politics. No one has a mortgage on ideas in this area. In fact, a wide range of policy options have been debated at length in recent months. So it’s not so much about deciding what we need to do, it’s about deciding to do it together.
We’ve called for a Digital Future Forum, bringing together the government and the opposition with organisations representing the perspectives of everyone who’s contribution is needed to realise our potential as an innovation nation. See: https://www.internet.org.au/index.php/news/92-30-june-2015-internet-australia-calls-for-a-digital-future-forum“
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Funding for STEM can’t come soon enough. All kids need to learn to code. It seems primary school kids have the priority here. But we need current high school kids to get in early before they lose the opportunity to learn this basic skill for the future.
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I have been heavily involved in two vital global innovations. The first was the Malayan Emergency, a long and exhausting 12 year war against ruthless and brutal communism. We won with a HIGHLY INNOVATIVE strategy. The Americans lost in Vietnam with a flawed strategy employing CONVENTIONAL warfare. Second, inspired by the highly superior management skills and world-best marketing and market research at Unilever Australia I conceived and launched the world’s first ever powerful HIGHLY INNOVATIVE ad agency planning role in a Sydney ad agency in 1966. In Malaysia I have been thanked by the King and by other senior government officials. In the Australian ad industry the response was hate and Machiavellian behaviour. INNOVATION is not always welcomed – anywhere, anytime.
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When we’re talking innovation, there’s a widely held assumption that it’s coming from young people. It doesn’t.
Malcom was 50?when he made his millions in IT.
The blue tooth scientists weren’t in some warehouse start up.
The average person on the New Inventors was a farmer in his 50’s.
And by the way, is the New Inventors show returning in this new climate of innovation?
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Governments are aggressively exporting IT jobs to the third world, but then offer a few shekels and some dodgy insolvency laws so a few hucksters can rob investors.
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