Industrial research
This article demonstrates why R&D and industrial innovation have done so poorly in Australia, with “investment in building the case for developing a dynamic innovatin system, economy and society – in which greater investment in R&D would make sense” as the best we can come up with as a proposal for a way forward.
It is not difficult to see where the problem lies. When I started my career as an engineer in the US, industrial research was synonymous with Bell Labs, IBM, Xerox, Dupont, Corning, Hewlett-Packard, Westinghouse, GE, and so on; the great inventions and innovations took place in industry, not in academia.
Due to its heritage aas a penal colony, and its strict subservience to Britain, Australia has always been anti-industry; our purpose was to supply raw materials and to spend the proceeds on buying imported manufactured goods.
The result is that research has come to be understood as academic research, largely divorced from the realities and requirements of industry. What Australia needs is not further navel-gazing abour R&D policy, but a realistic inductrial policy.
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