Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Submission to the Review of the National Innovation System

Professor Stuart Cunningham CHASS President
Mr Toss Gascoigne CHASS Executive Director

20 April 2008

Introduction

As innovation policy evolves, the integration of the natural sciences with the human and social sciences as key inputs becomes more critical. Australia is by no means alone in seeking to review and reform its innovation policy framework, and the new government has made a dramatic start. As the Prime Minister said in his closing address to the 2020 Summit in Canberra on 20 April 2008:

"This false divide between the arts and science, between the arts and industry, between the arts and the economy: we've actually got to put that to bed. As if creativity is somehow this thing which only applies to the arts, and innovation is this thing over here which applies uniquely to the sciences, or technology, or to design. This is actually again a false dichotomy: it's just not like that. Our ambition should be to create and to foster a creative imaginative Australia because so much of the economy of the twenty-first century is going to require that central faculty."

Innovation policy is evolving in response to the limitations of the original linear model; the opportunities offered by the emphasis in business on incremental and process innovation in services; and to belated recognition of the significance of public sector innovation and social innovation arising from the consumption or household sectors (such as user-led innovation).

Contemporary innovation policy now recognises the contributions of all disciplines to innovation and looks to construct systems that encourage them to work together.

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Topics covered in this submission:

1. Identify a set of principles to underpin the role of the public sector in innovation
2. Develop a set of national innovation priorities, complementing the national research priorities
3. Identify regulatory and other barriers to innovation
4. Examine the scope for simplifying the set of innovation programs
5. Review the R&D Tax Concession Scheme and CRC Program and recommend ways to improve their innovation outcomes
6. Consider ways to improve the governance of the national innovation system.

 

For more information, please contact:

Toss Gascoigne

Executive Director

Council of the Humanties, Arts and Social Sciences

Phone: +61 2 6249 1995

director@chass.org.au