A Submission on the Discussion Paper, A Place for Innovation - Queensland Innovation Places Strategy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYRecommendation 1The Queensland Government should renew its Queensland Hackerspaces Grant program to further support makerspaces, fab labs, and hackerspaces in Queensland.Recommendation 2The Queensland Government should expand its existing Advanced Manufacturing Hubs, and add new Advanced Manufacturing Hubs to its network. The network of manufacturing institutes in the United States could be a useful model for this expansion.Recommendation 3The Queensland Government should further expand and diversify its range of specialist Innovation Hubs. Moreover, the Queensland Government should develop Innovation Precincts – bringing together government, industry, and higher education to work on specialist fields of science and technology.Recommendation 4The Queensland Government should also support local government initiatives in respect of Smart Hubs.Recommendation 5The Queensland Government should support the development of new innovation spaces, places, and precincts at Queensland universities.Recommendation 6The Queensland Government should also take note of the successes and failures in respect of commercial innovation spaces and places.Recommendation 7The Queensland Innovation Places Strategy should include libraries (and other cultural institutions) as key innovation places and spaces.Recommendation 8The Queensland Innovation Places Strategy should also foster social enterprises and community innovation.Recommendation 9The Queensland Innovation Places Strategy should establish a network of innovation centres to protect, promote, and enforce Indigenous intellectual property, innovation and knowledge.Recommendation 10The Queensland Innovation Places Strategy should be compared with the innovation policies and practices of other Australian states and territories.Recommendation 11There is a need for better Federal Government support of research, innovation, and science. As the Productivity Commission has observed, there should be a better co-ordination, integration and networking of innovation initiatives in Australia – so that they can scale up, and be internationally competitive. There should also be a revisiting of the Northern Australia agenda.Recommendation 12The Queensland Government should draw lessons from innovation policies and practices in other key jurisdictions – such as the United States’ Advanced Manufacturing Policy; Canada’s Innovation Superclusters Initiative; and the European Union’s Strategy on Research and Innovation. The Queensland Government should also consider how its innovation policies and practices will be affected by international trade and investment agreements (bilateral, regional, and multilateral).Recommendation 13The Queensland Government should explore the participation of Queensland innovation places and spaces in international technology mechanisms (for instance, the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre and Network; the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network; and the ACT-Accelerator). The Queensland Government should also seek to include Queensland innovation places and spaces in ‘Big Science’ projects