As Australia and other countries seek to establish biotechnology industries, it is timely to review successes and failures in this field. One of the most notable stories is the development of penicillin, as a wartime project, to which Australians made major contributions. Australians during and...

The twenty-first century wine industry is a very different one from that which dominated operations in the 1980s and 1990s. Production, distribution and marketing of wine are now colonised by an array of complex and intersecting dynamics. Primary among these is a growing demand among consumers...

Scholars studying science policy have long wondered how the progress of science is affected by scientists' motives, and by the incentives and constraints that scientific institutions create. This paper aims to answer two objections to the soundness and applicability of the 'economics of science'...

Why is it that Kyoto, ancient cultural capital of Japan, a conservative and traditional place in many ways, manages to produce Japan's most innovative (and profitable) high technology entrepreneurial firms? Further, what causes regions such as Kyoto to create a self-sustaining critical mass, or...

This paper is concerned with the scope for developing countries to benefit from the Internet in non-synchronous ways that is, in cases where some delay is involved in the delivery of information, as compared with the real-time alternative used in developed countries. The first part of the paper...

Pharmacists in the UK were granted supplementary prescribing rights in 2003, subject to further training. Most of those now qualified are practising in general medical practices and hospitals. This qualitative study explores GP and pharmacist perceptions of the introduction of pharmacist...

Nanotechnology is widely considered to offer enormous competitive advantages to those countries that possess the knowledge and capacity to harness its potential. As in many other countries, Australia's nanotechnology policy is in its infancy and lags international research in the field. We...

Since the mid-1990s, Japan has instituted a series of policy reforms in order to encourage greater university participation in commercial activity. Using data from a survey of scientists in engineering and biomedical fields in Japanese universities, we find that there has been a significant...

Changes in access to data are leading to rapid 'data wealth' in some scientific fields, even as others remain 'data-poor'. Furthermore, the current attention towards developing computer-based infrastructures and digital access to common data sets—the basics of scientific...

This paper examines the evolving situation of mature manufacturing small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) in Japan and the United States and considers some of the key challenges they now face in an era of globalization and rapid technological change. The rationale and justification for policy...