Standing on the shoulders of science: Getting more value from the innvoation ecosystem
Overview
New Zealand needs a world class innovation ecosystem to maintain relative productivity levels in our areas of strength, like agriculture. In addition to protecting areas of strength, New Zealand needs to establish additional sources of economic growth, especially exports.Technology-based internationally-focused businesses built on innovation are already making an important contribution, they are growing, and there is further potential. ‘Go-global’ businesses based in New Zealand can be built within a successful innovation ecosystem.
This report describes opportunities for New Zealand to realize economic benefits from an improved innovation ecosystem and increased investment in R&D. The innovation ecosystem must be managed as a whole, with a single point of responsibility. This will enable New Zealand to address some of the many persistent innovation issues, creating sufficient incentive for existing businesses to increase investment and an environment more conducive to developing go-global firms.
The scale of the change required is illustrated by the low R&D spend in New Zealand, which at 1.5% of GDP is only half of the targets set in Denmark and Singapore. Given the low business R&D investment, much of the increased investment should come from businesses.
> Executive summary (305kb PDF)
> Full report (1554kb PDF)
