More globally-focused companies and less risk-averse governments could help Australia improve its poor rankings for business-research connections, according to a Canberra innovation leader.
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CBR Innovation Network chief executive Sarah Pearson said Australia had made great progress in recent years embracing the collaborative "open innovation" which had occurred in Europe and the United States for a decade and Canberra had natural advantages to play a growing part.
"Australian companies are quite protective, they have the mindset that they are in a small economy, and a lot of them forget they are in a global economy – which means a bigger pie and anyone can come into it," she said.
Dr Pearson's comments came after both Industry and Science Minister Ian Macfarlane and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten this week condemned the country's poor rankings for connections between business and research bodies.
"We [Australia] come last – 33rd out of 33 – in an OECD survey on the rate of collaboration between business and research organisations," Mr Macfarlane said on Tuesday night.
"We must translate our ideas and research into real goods and services, technologies and life improvements."
Dr Pearson said the founding of the Innovation Network last November, which brings together the city's leading universities, the CSIRO and NICTA, the nation's information and communications technology research school of excellence, was a first for Australia and would speed up investment
"We've got the knowledge base, we've got the companies and we've got a small enough community that entrepreneurs can feel they're part of something," she said.
Speaking at the Science Meets Parliament gala dinner on Tuesday, Business Council of Australia president Catherine Livingstone said short-term and stop-start funding policies undermined quality research results.
"There is a disconnect between the research community ... and the funding arms who see R&D as a discretionary cost that can be varied on an annual basis," she said.
Canberra Business Chamber chairman Glenn Keys said Canberra's universities were entrepreneurial, but businesses needed to more open to investing.
Mr Keys, co-founder of global company Aspen Medical, pointed to successful Canberra-based companies like Windlabs and Seeing Machines as examples of commercial success growing from unique research.
Mr Macfarlane said the Commonwealth Science Council, which reports directly to the Prime Minister, would outline its funding priorities later this year. Last week a report commissioned by Australia's Chief Scientist Ian Chubb found advanced sciences contribute more than $145 billion to the economy each year.
