We’ve long said that not just the recovery, but Australia’s future economy must be complex, with science at its core. An economy with businesses born out of R&D that continue to invest returns in future development, scientific endeavour, discovery and invention. Over the past 20 years Cicada Innovations this has been our lived experience. Supporting hundreds of science and engineering based businesses solving some of the world's most pressing problems in health, agriculture, energy and more. All started out with scientific research, commercialized it within our four walls, and continue to build the businesses of our future economy - locally and globally.
“It is critical that Australia dramatically improves our capacity to commercialise our public research and make our economy more complex.” - Richard Marles MP
Recent comments by Hon Richard Marles MP at the National Press Club echo our lived experience of the past two decades and shone a spotlight on the opportunity and challenges for Australia.
Economies that are founded on new inventions and innovative technologies are global growth machines. If we are looking for priority actions for people - jobs, opportunities and economic wealth - no other input can drive improvements in living standards in the same way. Economies that have a high number of R&D businesses have a high resilience to global economic challenges and in the long run have the capability to reap continued benefit. Given that Germany, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Israel and the UK, have made it a priority to invest in deep tech businesses, you would think Australia would follow. Leveraging our natural strengths in research and investing in commercialisation in a similar way.
Yet only 12 of the 2,500 global R&D leaders are Australian companies, compared with countries with similar economies to ours like South Korea and Canada, who have 60 and 28 on the list respectively. For a country with such a rich history of innovation — Cochlear implants, the flight recorder or blackbox, Resmed’s CPAP device and WiFi to name a few — this seems counterintuitive.
* Australia’s DeepTech Opportunity - Insights from the Cicada Innovations journey
Australian companies on the list of global R&D leaders include Cochlear, ResMed, and CSL Limited, which are now valued at $12b, $35b, and $127b respectively. Emulating the success of these companies could lead to a new generation of Australian deep tech corporates — a multi-billion dollar opportunity.
The catch lies in the fact that deep tech is both time and capital intensive, so in order for startups to flourish, they need to be supported in the right way and for long periods of time. Incubators are increasingly demonstrating their efficacy at successfully commercialising deep tech startups, providing these early stage companies with crucial inputs: access to finance, a business network, skilled workers, and specialised equipment and facilities.
“Cicada shows that there are examples of clever commercialisation of science happening in Australia. Our policy goal must be to find ways of ensuring that this best practice becomes the everyday practice in Australia.” - Richard Marles MP
Being Australia’s first and longest running incubator with 20 years worth of learning and experience behind it, Cicada Innovations is uniquely positioned to take on the challenge of improving Australia’s global deep tech presence. However, we are the first to agree that this cannot be done in a silo.
It’s time for corporate leaders and the government to recognise the enormous benefits of investing in science and technology. Looking at just five of Cicada’s portfolio of over 100 incubated companies, we can see over $1.1B+ created via sales or IPOs — clear and significant opportunity for financial return from R&D through direct investment.
If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that creativity, science, and collaboration are more vital than ever. Never before has there been such a united global focus by governments, business and the community to bring a solution to bear. We welcome the remarks by Richard Marles on Labour’s commitment to science and technology. We welcome the Federal Government's $1.3B commitment to Modern Manufacturing growth. We are excited about the Space Agency and what it means for science & engineering companies in Australia. However what we need to recognise is that to transform our economy to one that is spearheaded by R&D businesses - it’s going to take commitment and collaboration from government, industry and the community.
We all need to get behind a national vision and play our part for the long term to build the future that Australians deserve. We need to raise our investment in R&D to match economies like ours in the OECD. We need to commit to ongoing investment in professional development to equip and inspire the next generation of innovators. We need to bridge the gap between blue sky research and invest in the translation. Together we need to invest in our future.