International firms pay billions to acquire successful Australian technology companies, while Australian industry policy funds research institutions while starving local vendors of scaling support to do more onshore.
Institutions point to Australia’s $4.2 trillion superannuation funds asking for “patient capital” to support research spin-outs. Yet Australian companies whose commercial survival depends on successful innovation translation are completely overlooked.
The Commercialisation Skills Australia Needs Already Exist In a Newcastle workshop, 3ME Technology electrified underground mining equipment before expanding into marine and defence applications. This isn't a story about startup funding or university spin-offs. It's about commercial maturity developed through serving customers across sectors; local companies systematically translating innovations into commercial products and market success. Australian innovation policy obsesses over advancing...
Australia has world-class research and commercial companies. The challenge isn’t capability, it is competency. Policy settings place commercialisation responsibility on research organisations, bypassing Australian companies who actually know how.
The productivity conversation needs commercial voices While there has been a very long list of policy influencers vying for an invitation to the productivity roundtables, the list of who made it through the door reveals a striking insight into Government policy setting. The mix of experts diagnosing innovation are heavily biased towards academics, research institutions and industry associations. Commercial leaders in the room tend towards financial services and the investment sector - venture...
Innovation doesn’t cross the Valley of Death, companies do. We have built an ecosystem around project-based grant funding, and wonder why Australian companies struggle to scale globally.