Submission – Productivity in Australia
The Academy recommends increasing investment in R&D and STEM to boost productivity, competitiveness and innovation – addressing the chronic underinvestment of the past decade and strategic gaps.
The Academy recommends that the Australian Government:
- recognises the value of R&D as an important driver of productivity growth and considers making new interventions to stimulate R&D activity, as part of the productivity agenda
- develops a 10-year R&D investment plan to restore national research investment. The Academy’s budget-positive proposal to establish a Research Fund using revenue from an R&D levy should form part of the plan
- implements the findings of the Strategic Examination of R&D (SERD) to reform our research system and reverse the decline in R&D investment in Australia
- creates a 10-year strategy for high performance computing and data (HPCD) with focused capability building in next generation HPCD infrastructure. Such infrastructure is essential for progress in both research and industry
- adopts a national STEM workforce strategy to build a strong, diverse and mobile STEM capability. This will help generate the skilled workforce to create and use innovations that boost productivity
- establishes enforceable indoor air quality performance standards in public buildings to enable clean indoor air that improves productivity by reducing the transmission of disease, reducing absenteeism, and improving cognitive performance
- adopts a national circular economy and resource efficiency framework.
