Page 3041 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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Our strong showing is partly because research intensive companies are based here to sell R&D intensive services to the Australian government, particularly the Department of Defence, and partly because, with the highest intensity higher education R&D expenditure in Australia, companies want to be close to organisations such as the ANU, CSIRO, NICTA, UNSW Canberra and UC. A great example of this relationship between business and research is the co-location of EOS space systems with ANU and the Cooperative Research Centre for Space Environment Management at Mount Stromlo.
“Confident & business ready: building on our strengths” builds on the policy themes we have put in place in 2012. We will continue to grow and diversify Canberra’s economy by creating the right business environment, accelerating innovation to create wealth and jobs and supporting our business investment in future growth areas.
We are committed to creating the right business environment in Canberra. Many businesses would say that the best thing government can do to help them is to get out of the way. And I agree. That is why we have put in place a strong regulatory reform agenda and we have taken action to reduce red tape.
But government can also make a positive contribution to the overall environment facing businesses, particularly in their interactions with government. That is why we have established Access Canberra to ensure that there is no wrong door approach to dealing with the ACT government. We have also delivered on our commitment to reduce payroll tax and reduce conveyance duties. We are playing a strong role in projecting Canberra to new markets and global talent, initiatives like brand Canberra, study Canberra and Invest Canberra.
Our second goal is to accelerate innovation to create wealth and jobs. Coming out of the 2012 strategy we established the CBR Innovation Network as a partnership between the research sector, the business community and the government. The participation of the foundation members, ANU, UC, UNSW Canberra, NICTA and CSIRO, is a major nation-leading outcome for driving innovation.
As the Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, Professor Ian Young, noted, the higher education and research institutions would have difficulty achieving their commercialisation and business development goals without the multilayered engagement that the network has become so important in making happen.
We have also committed to supporting the institutions to develop key new capability areas—the national agriculture and environmental sciences precinct at Black Mountain, the sports cluster and the health cluster at UC, the space cluster at Mount Stromlo and at UNSW Canberra, the ICT and e-government cluster at NICTA and the cyber security cluster at UNSW Canberra.
But we also recognise that driving business innovation is as important as working with the institutions to maximise their economic impact on Canberra. That is why the role of the CBR Innovation Network is so important in bringing together the research sector and the business community. It is why we have committed an additional $300,000 per year for the next two years to the network.
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