Over Prescriptive Innovation Proposal Risks Undermining Policy's Intent. (February 19, 2013)

The former scientific advisor to Braden Nelson when he was Minister for Education, Science and Training, Thomas Barlow, has issued a note of caution regarding the government's proposal regarding the investment of a half billion dollars to establish up to 10 industry innovation precincts -- of which food and manufacturing are to be the first two -- and which it intends should be amalgams of universities, the private sector and governmental agencies.

Dr Barlow told The Australian's Julie Hare: "In my view, it won't create any profound structural change but provide a corrupting attitude and mentality among our innovators because they will be thinking they get a piece of the pie. Self-interest is corrupting. Whoever is in the in-crowd will make sure that at least some of the money makes its way to their own interests, their friends and allies."

He also points to a German example which attempted beginning in the 1970s to dictate a similar approach: "They focused on programs very much like the precincts proposal, which was to support research with a practical application and foster links with the pharmaceuticals industry. By 1993, the German pharmaceutical industry had fallen from 17 per cent of global activity to 8 per cent. Whereas the US, which invested where new ideas emerged, led the world in molecular technology by 1993 and are now No 1 in transferring biotechnology innovations into pharmaceutical products."

Others, however, are more sanguine. Hugh Durrant-Whyte, chief executive of National ICT Australia, told Ms Hare that investment in precincts was a good idea in principle but the money should not go into "bricks and cement".

Here we note, as alluded to by Dr Barlow, that the synergies developed in the US in Silicone Valley and along Massachusetts Route 128 were not government decreed.