The Australian Innovation Research Centre (AIRC) researches key issues in innovation performance and economic development. One of our primary aims is to link our research to issues in public policy and business development. AIRC accomplishes this via policy advice to state and federal governments in Australia, policy work with overseas governments and agencies, an entrepreneurship program, a teaching program on innovation policy and a strategic innovation forum. AIRC communicates results via publications, seminars and workshops.

We focus on the links between innovation, productivity, and economic growth. This focus involves two broad and distinct streams of work.

Science-based innovation involves participation in emerging sectors such as biotechnology or nanotechnology. The challenge is to link research and business opportunities and to ensure that appropriate levels of venture capital and business support are available.

Innovation in established industries, products and processes involves consistent technological upgrading of existing activities. This kind of innovation is characteristic of the so-called low-tech activities on which both the Tasmanian and the Australian economies rest. A theme of AIRC's work is that the innovation and growth prospects of such industries are often underestimated. These industries require the deployment of major knowledge resources linked to the science and technology infrastructure of universities and research institutes.

What is Innovation Studies?

Innovation Studies is a problem-oriented field that explores the origins, nature and effects of technological and organisational change. Innovation Studies focuses on the structure and operations of learning, including science and formal R&D, as well as learning in companies, universities and research institutes.

Although persistent innovation is one of the few genuinely defining features of modern society, innovation research on a significant scale began only very recently. From the mid-1970s, an increasing number of researchers - usually within small research institutes attached to universities in Europe or to business schools in the USA - turned their attention to innovation. Innovation Studies is now a large field in both Europe and the USA.

What has been achieved and what research challenges remain? Innovation Studies has been approached from a cross-disciplinary perspective by researchers with backgrounds in economics, engineering, management, sociology and history. Much research has been empirical, exploring the characteristics of innovation using case studies and statistical analyses. The main robust conclusions that can be drawn so far from this extensive body of work are that:

• Economic growth and competitiveness rest ultimately on innovation performance.
• Innovation outcomes are highly uncertain, with great complexity and variety in investment patterns among firms and industries.
• Innovation very often relies on collaboration and interactive learning among organisations.
• Local clusters are important, and reflect national and regional patterns of industrial and technological specialisation.
• Innovation involves a strong science-technology interaction.
• Innovation is ‘systemic' - it involves interaction between firms and institutions, policies and infrastructures.

Research in this field has challenged earlier assumptions, in particular the idea that innovations come about primarily as a result of scientific research. Today, innovation is seen as an extremely differentiated and heterogeneous activity that assumes different forms and involves a range of activities. However, major intellectual and policy issues concerning innovation remain unresolved. AIRC research seeks to explore the dimensions and significance of such issues.