Following the publication of the e-book of its editorial series Towards 3% R&D – turbocharging Australia’s innovation effort, featuring our Founder and CEO, Jefferson Harcourt, @AuManufacturing News and public accounting, tax, consulting and business advisory BDO are proud to present a webinar Towards 3% R&D – Where to from here?.
Will Australia step up and invest as much as peer nations on innovating for the future – or will we condemn ourselves to irrelevance and economic decline – Australia is failing badly in meeting our own target of spending 3% of GDP on R&D?
Through April and May, 2024 @AuManufacturing news published opinion crowd sourced from readers and members of the Australian Manufacturing Forum Linkedin group articulating the issues around a drastic slump in Australia’s innovation effort over the past 10 years, as measured by R&D.
The e-book summarises 27 expert opinions and puts the case for a national innovation and industry policy to arrest the slide.
Every nation and every company must invest a portion of their income on innovating for the future – or they condemn themselves to irrelevance and economic decline – Australia has a target of spending 3% of GDP on R&D.
However R&D effort has fallen from 2.2 percent of GDP just over a decade ago to 1.68 percent now – well below the OECD average of 2.8 percent, not to mention leading countries like Korea, Israel and Switzerland with expenditures of up to five percent.
“While Australia has been ‘lucky’ to date relying on iron ore, coal and gas – our industry mix is unsustainable if we are to remain a wealthy. @AuManufacturing asked readers what is going right and wrong with our innovation system, and how to fix it and received around 40 substantial contributions – summarised in the special e-book.
Australia urgently needs to organise and co-ordinate its innovation efforts, though there are some opportunities driving innovation such as defence, the energy transition and space.
Hosted by Peter Roberts, the webinar will take place on Thursday 19 September, 11:00am – 12:00pm (AEST) (more information and sign up here).
What you can expect:
- Insights from the @AuManufacturing editorial series
- Why the innovation crisis should matter to all Australians
- How we can increase our national R&D spend to 3 per cent of GDP
- And what makes up a cohesive, coordinated national innovation strategy.
The expert panellists:
- Jefferson Harcourt | Executive Chairman, Grey Innovation Group
- Nicola Purser | National Leader, BDO R&D and Government Grants
- Dr John Howard | Executive Director, Acton Institute for Policy Research and Innovation, and Visiting Professor, UTS Institute for Public Policy and Governance
- Serena Ross | CEO, Circuitwise Electronics Manufacturing
Image: @AuManufacturing News