A new five-year strategic plan for the Department on Industry, focussed on four key objectives, including supporting 'science and commercialisation'.
According to the recently released plan, the Government's vision is for an "agile economy, capitalising on Australia's commercial and scientific strengths."
It says the Department of Industry and Science will contribute to the vision by facilitating the growth and productivity of globally competitive industries.
"It is only through competitive businesses and industries that the jobs and prosperity of the future can be secured," it says.
The four pillars of the strategic plan are:
- Supporting science and commercialisation;
- Growing business investment and improving business capability;
- Streamlining regulation; and
- Building a high performance organisation.
On the first pillar, supporting science and commercialisation, the plan says encouraging collaboration between researchers and business is key to delivering "better scientific and commercial outcomes for Australia."
Its aims are to support the creation and sharing of scientific and technological information
as an input to commercial activity, and to encourage collaboration between the research sector and business to generate solutions that lead to "improved productivity, international competitiveness and address national and international challenges."
The plan identifies two key challenges in facilitating this closer collaboration, including "cultural differences between businesses and researchers," and "demonstrating measurable economic benefits of science and innovation spending, given not all investment will deliver results in the short-term."
In terms of outcomes, it says that it expects policy to deliver "better scientific and economic outcomes" if there is an increase in the number of businesses engaging in innovative activities, more investment by businesses in intangible assets such as 'knowledge', improved returns from commercialisation of research and an overall improvement in Australia's performance in scientific research.