Australia – 4th in Olympic Gold Medals, but 93rd in the world for economic complexity and 72nd for knowledge diffusion. We can do better.

The top ten countries in the world for economic complexity, are not just technologically advanced but also rate well for knowledge diffusion. They all share knowledge effectively.

Australia? Not so good.

We are dependent on mining for our wealth and to a large extent also dependent on mining for the development of the automation, robotics, AI, drones and software products, used for exploration, mining, environmental management, safety, monitoring, testing, processing and training.

Mining has served Australia well.

But we now have to leverage the advantages that mining has delivered across other productive industry sectors.

Agriculture already benefits from many of the same technologies applied to mining, such as Ceres Tag, Data Farming, Swarmfarm, Farmbot, Optiweigh and so on. As does defence.

But the world we live in is a fickle place and a complete reliance on any sector is unwise. We need to support and grow our productive industries and expand our export markets. We rely too heavily on minerals and China. We need to diversify.

And for that to happen, we need to collaborate and share knowledge far more effectively than we do today. In the same way that the top ten countries do.

They are all good at knowledge sharing, which is one of the reasons they are so successful.

They are also good at design, branding and marketing their products to the world. We are not so good at that either.

We have mineral wealth. And we have brain power. But we don’t use that wealth and power effectively. We don’t collaborate and share nationally for common purpose.?

Our universities can deliver a wealth of ideas and innovation to help rebuild our economy, and increase the complexity of industry beyond just resources.

But we have an ingrained commodity mindset in Australia. And collaboration is not rewarded.

Dig it up and ship it out. Grow it and sell it. Bring in overseas students and tourists and the future will look after itself.

Even the wise advice which the Productivity Commission spelled out in 2022 reflects “commodity mindset” thinking.

“While novel, ‘new-to-the-world’, innovation is an important source of economic performance, it relates to only one to two per cent of Australian firms. The slow accretion of existing knowledge across the economy — diffusion — is often overlooked as a source of productivity. It has the scope to lift the performance of millions of businesses.”

Productivity Commission 2022.

It is generic. Not nuanced. Applied to all. Diffusion for everybody.

That’s fine, but we need to focus our efforts. We can’t do everything.

Focus is the approach that gained us the Olympic Gold Medals. Focus on the best. The most productive.

We need to focus on our productive industry sectors. They have the capacity to grow, employ and create products for export to markets overseas.

Technology innovations and ideas generated in universities can be shared and applied to many industry sectors including Agriculture, Defence, Space, Manufacturing, Medtech, Energy, Mining, Construction, Education, Environment, ICT and Transport for business improvement, investment, export, sustainability, procurement and jobs.

We need to pick winners.

Take the same approach we do with Olympic athletes.

We need to use the brainpower of our universities to target and share innovations and ideas with the business organisations that can use this knowledge to advantage.

Research show that businesses are most interested in sales information (of course) – 100%, then information about their sector – 68%, then innovation news – 67%, future of work & jobs – 62%, investment news – 52%, sustainability information – 33% and international market news – 30%.

So, helping business with regular market intelligence about their business category and sector, and innovation and ideas that apply, is very useful.

But even better, if market intelligence is delivered with strategic insights as well. Where does this all fit into Australia’s strategic vision?

And businesses like case studies, illustrating what another business or organisation like them is doing. Evidence. Proof.

FOMO and competitive advantage then kicks in.

And who better to share update insights and knowledge than the universities.

Most universities engage and share with a selected group of businesses and associations, but on an ad hoc basis. Federal government does not fund universities for industry engagement. Universities do it under their own steam.

Many of the webinars, videos and podcasts that universities publish on their websites and YouTube channels would be of interest to businesses across the country. If they knew they were there.

Recognising this we have gone through every university YouTube channel going back five years, and selected any webinar or video with value to business, and published links to those valuable resources in the University Groups under the Strategy section on the myREGION.au platform. Free to sign up and view those resources.

This is a simple example of how we do not collaborate or share knowledge nationally or strategically. There are many other examples.

Insights shared locally, can be applied nationally, with other businesses across the country gaining the benefit.

But in Australia, we need to do this better. We need to be strategic, not ad hoc or parochial.

We need to be consistent. To be more like the top ten countries in the Economic Complexity Index, rather than the ten countries next to us in the ECI.

The top ten countries are advanced technologically with diversified economies. Smart. Prepared for the future.?

The ten countries closest to us in the ratings largely rely on minerals, basic agricultural export, tourism and simple manufacturing. Not so smart. Prone to external disruption.

Algeria – Oli, Armenia – Copper Ore and Tourism, Burkina Faso – Gold, Honduras, Coffee and Clothes, Mali – Gold, Namibia – Minerals, Pakistan – Clothes, Senegal – Gold and Minerals, Tajikistan – Mineral Ore and Cotton, Uganda – Gold and Coffee.

And of course, Australia – reliant on Iron Ore, Coal and Agriculture.

Whereas, Japan – Machinery, Cars, Electronics, Switzerland – Medicine, Watches, Gold, Korea – Electronics, Machinery, Cars and so on are all diversified 21st century economies.?

The picture is clear. And it is not pretty.

18th and 19th century commodities versus 21st century, high technology manufacturing and exports.

An 18th and 19th century Australia is not the future we want for our kids and grandkids.

What is the point pushing them into STEM and encouraging them into university study if they have to leave the country to find appropriate work elsewhere?

Because we cannot employ them in technologically advanced jobs, if we don’t have the productive industries to employ them. Mining leads the way on the applied use of technology in Australia. But can only employ a relatively small number of people.

We have to do better.

Australia is 4th in the world for Olympic Gold Medals and 93rd for Economic Complexity.

We have the mineral wealth and the intellectual wealth. But we are not leveraging the resources that we have effectively.

There are 40+ research-based universities across the country with knowledge to share.

The myREGION.au platform has been developed to support national, regional and sectoral sharing of knowledge.

All the pieces of an advanced economy jigsaw are available in Australia. They just need to be assembled in the right way.

That means collaboration across the nation. Our States compete, but we need to take a bigger picture view of Australia and share knowledge nationally, across all regions, regardless of state boundaries.

Our councils compete, but we need to recognise that no single council, even Brisbane the biggest, has all the productive businesses that it will take to rebuild our economy. Those businesses are spread across the country, in the capital cities, major regional cities and regions.

We need to connect them all. Knowledge from universities needs to be shared nationally.

With businesses. With not-for-profit organisations. With high schools.

Our industry associations need to work together. But that is unlikely to happen.

We have created a condition of internal competition that is not good for us.

Our industry associations compete for membership and subscriptions. Collaboration is difficult for them and sometimes impossible.

Internal competition in Australia does us no favours. We have slipped to 93rd steadily over the years we have been competing internally.

And we could slip even further.

Without mining, and the leadership of Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue and others we would not have the opportunity that we have today.

Without our 40+ universities we would be doomed to remain with the other countries also bad at knowledge diffusion.

Without the example of Technology One, Atlassian and Canva, we would not believe that innovation could lead to bigger things.

But we still have time.

We don’t know how much time. In the last few years, we have seen a pandemic, trade disruption from our largest customer, war in Europe and the Middle East.

Waiting for something to happen is rarely a good strategy. Planning, acting and making something happen, changes perspective. From passive to active.

The universities can and should be the engine room for positive change in Australia. Brain power is concentrated in universities more than anywhere else.

The banks can’t do it. And most corporates in Australia are sales and branch offices of multinationals headquartered elsewhere. Sales decisions local. Strategic decisions in a foreign head office.

They have headquarters interest at heart not the future good of Australia.

The miners pay to “keep the lights on” in Australia through royalties and taxes.

But the ideas and innovation that can move us all in a positive direction is concentrated in the universities. We need to use that resource wisely.

And then use the example of Technology One, Atlassian and Canva to aim high. Higher.

Move from 93rd for economic complexity. Move from 72nd in the world for knowledge diffusion to no 1.

It can be done.

Let’s do it.

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