Innovatia

BUILDING AUSTRALIA’S INNOVATION CULTURE Former Chief Scientist of Australia, Professor Robin Batterham AO”, started an innovation revolution with his report, Chance to Change. Here he shares his views on where we go next. W hen Dr Robin Batterham visited an Aus- tralian university, he saw an exhibit that left him fascinated. According to him, it

Multiplying our success stories Dr Batterham’s view is that if Australia can multi- ply its output of dynamic home-grown global or- ganisations, then the chances of it raising a giant such as a Nokia, an Ericsson or a Novo Nordisk will increase significantly. “If we tried to deliberately grow one, we would probably fall flat on our faces,” he says. “Our im- mediate aim should be to try to get as many of our companies to the top-end of the scale for global SMEs. From there they will either be sold for a handsome profit, or else go on to become a world brand. Either way, I’d view it as success.” “Australians seem to have an insatiable appetite for what is new, interesting and exciting.” Compared with a decade ago, Dr Batterham be- lieves Australia has most of the key elements in place to achieve this. It has a strong, supportive research and development base within univer- sities, and has established cooperative research centres and science agencies such as the CSIRO. There are also more policies that help with inno- vation as well as incentives. Australia’s research and development supports innovation and most Australians recognise the value of it. However, it isn’t happening enough. “On paper it looks a simple proposition,” explains Dr Bat- terham. “You can bank your money and earn in- terest at a rate of 3 per cent or you can put it into research and development and earn an internal rate of return of 30 per cent.

Vision Systems. These are global companies that started out in Australia. If we can get a company into the world market, retain our equity and grow it to a level where its turnover is around A$200- $500 million before it gets taken over, then I would say bravo. The big question is how do we gener- ate 10 times as many such companies as we are currently generating?”

clearly showed the power of one idea sparking off another. In the exhibit, a clump of living neurones in a glass dish was wired up to a robot arm. Every time there was a noise, a sensor changed the ox- ygen content in the dish, causing the neurones to respond and command the arm to draw coloured swirls on a piece of paper. To Dr Batterham, this cunning piece of science art was an allegory for Australia’s innovation cul- ture. “Getting the neurones to fire and the ideas to spark across about 50,000 of Australia’s half-mil- lion small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) is at the heart of our national challenge,” he says. While he believes the links between science and big business are working well, those between sci- ence and SMEs, which make up half the econo- my, are not working as effectively. “The tag we see a lot of, ‘invented in Australia – commercialised offshore’, is something that wor- ries me,” he says. “Although there are exceptions with companies such as Memtec, ResMed, Cochlear, Radiata and

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