THE second annual Australian Innovation System report released by Innovation Minister Kim Carr yesterday is dry as a lizard's tongue at Longreach. Over 157 pages, it pulls statistics in from all over the world to position Australia on the global innovation league table. There are no specific policy prescriptions, no lofty conclusions, and the numbers often lag because of the complexity of the benchmarking process.
The picture it paints each year is destined, however, to become an increasingly important guide to innovation policy, particularly if the Australian dollar stays high, putting a premium on unique products.
There are already fascinating pointers in the data, and one of them is that Australia's innovation tends to be second-hand: companies are much more likely to take something that has already been developed and adapt it than invent something themselves. That in turn means we are still not getting significant ''first mover'' dividends from our rapidly expanding R&D budget.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Australia blunt at innovation's cutting edge
