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Government policy statements have continually stressed the significance of science and technology to Australia's economic development. Since 1984-85, when the 150 percent R&D tax concession was introduced, business enterprise R&D expenditure in Australia has doubled as a percentage of GDP. Around 85% of the public sector (Government agencies and universities) R&D is concentrated in the research rather than the development stage.
Government policy statements have continually stressed the significance of science and technology to Australia's economic development. Since 1984-85, when the 150 percent R&D tax concession was introduced, business enterprise R&D expenditure in Australia has doubled as a percentage of GDP. However, it has induced only a modest inducement of new R&D. This observation infers that apart from tax concessions other incentives have to be provided for inviting investments. The leading product fields, computer software and electronic equipment, account for almost one third of total business R&D.
Internationally, Australia's performance on public R&D (around 60%) is good. It is the low business R&D (BERD) to GDP ratio which makes Australia a relatively poor performer on overall R&D. Around 85% of the public sector (Government agencies and universities) R&D is concentrated in the research rather than the development stage. By contrast, two-thirds of business R&D expenditure is directed at product development, but this represents only one-quarter of overall R&D expenditure. The major part of Australia's R&D effort therefore tends to be concentrated in the early stages -- the research stage dominates the development stage in the ratio of 2:1. Because of this feature, while Australia is relatively strong in the research phase of the innovation process, it is relatively weak in commercializing the results of that research.