Science, Research and Industry Innovation Strategy for South Australia: Submission in Response to the Consultation Paper

This submission responds to the South Australian Government’s consultation paper on a Science, Research and Industry Innovation Strategy for South Australia. Research Australia maintains that continued and increased State investment in health and medical research should be central to the strategy, because it enables collaboration, leverages Commonwealth funding and helps the State, as the main provider of health services, deliver care more effectively and efficiently. Answering the paper’s questions, it recommends longer grants and targeted State fellowships for early career researchers, drawing on the European Molecular Biology Laboratory model; pathways for clinicians to do research; 12 to 24 months of re-entry funding for researchers returning from industry or parental leave; travel grants for early and mid-career researchers; and grants that reward collaboration across institutions, industry and borders. It proposes a public health cluster linked to the Public Health Act 2011, bioinformatics infrastructure, shared facilities and bioengineering as a growth area. To strengthen industry links it suggests expanding the Innovation Voucher Program, researcher secondments, an undergraduate research employment scheme modelled on Bio21’s, recognition of commercial outcomes in academic promotion, uniform principles for sharing commercialisation income and EasyAccess IP. It recommends a jointly administered State fund to bridge the ‘valley of death’ before commercialisation, a review and expansion of the Premier’s Research and Industry Fund, and health system measures including implementation research, clinician researcher roles, primary care research funding and health economics capacity.