Contributions of the Innovation System to AustraliaÂ’s Wine Industry Growth

Australia?s wine industry has been through major structural changes over the past six decades and has grown especially rapidly since the early 1990s. Investments in generic promotion and in grape and wine research and development have been significant features of the industry throughout that period, and have grown in importance following the formation in the early 1990s of the Australian Wine Export Council and the Grape and Wine R&D Corporation which coordinates the investing of grapegrower and winemaker national levies and matching federal government funding for such generic promotion and R&D. This paper summarizes that recent history, and concludes by speculating on the scope for and likely approaches to innovation in the future.