National innovation policy and public science in Australia
Abstract
In this paper, I have positioned myself with Kean Birch and explored some of the political-economic actors/actants of policy suites implicated in the biotechnologies and bioeconomy. In particular, I have considered Australia’s recent National Innovation and Science Agenda and allied documents and entities (that is, Innovation and Science Australia, the National Science Statement and the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap) as one of the National Innovation Strategies in place now in OECD countries and beyond. In overview, these policy suites utilise the same high knowledge creation/low translation and commericalisation arguments as elsewhere to press for particular ideologically based ‘improvements’ to public science. Mapping the terrain of these entities has revealed the innovation, biotechnology and bioeconomy policy space to be inordinately complex and challenging to navigate. Reviewing Australia’s position enables the type of comparative work that contributes to a closer understanding of the largely neoliberal global economic imperatives shaping contemporaneity. Moreover, while these policy suites attempt to constitute and circulate particular visions of science education, their complex nature mitigates against science teachers/educators grappling with their implications.
Keywords
Australia Policy Innovation BioeconomyReferences
- Australian Government. (2015). National innovation and science agenda. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved from www.innovation.gov.au/page/agenda
- Barrett, R. (2016). Innovation rhetoric and reality: An introduction to the TIM review’s special issue on innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia. Technology Innovation Management Review, 6(6), 5–10.Google Scholar
- Birch, K., & Tyfield, D. (2013). Theorizing the bioeconomy: Biovalue, biocapital, bioeconomics or… what? Science, Technology and Human Values, 38(3), 299–327. doi: 10.1177/0162243912442398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Bloch, H., & Bhattacharya, M. (2016). Promotion of innovation and job growth in small- and medium-sized enterprises in Australia: Evidence and policy issues. The Australian Economic Review, 49(2), 192–199. doi: 10.1111/1467-8462.12164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Carnera, A. (2012). The affective turn: The ambivalence of biopolitics within modern labour and management. Culture and Organization, 18(1), 69–84. doi: 10.1080/14759551.2011.631341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Claisse, F., & Delvenne, P. (2016). As above, so below? Narrative salience and side effects of national innovation systems. Critical Policy Studies. doi: 10.1080/19460171.2015.1119051.Google Scholar
- Cooper, M., & Waldby, C. (2014). Clinical labor: Tissue donors and research subjects in the global bioeconomy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822377009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Davidson, S., & Potts, J. (2016). A new institutional approach to innovation policy: A new institutional approach to innovation policy. The Australian Economic Review, 49(2), 200–207. doi: 10.1111/1467-8462.12153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Edquist, C. (2005). Systems of innovation. Technologies, institutions and organizations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Edquist, C., & Lundvall, B.-A. (1993). Comparing the Danish and Swedish systems of innovations. In R. Nelson (Ed.), National innovation systems (pp. 265–298). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Fenna, A. (2016). Shaping comparative advantage: The evolution of trade and industry policy in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 618–635. doi: 10.1080/10361146.2016.1239565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Ferris, B. (2016). Research excellence and commercialisation excellence—Can the HMR sector lead the way in Australia? Retrieved from: https://industry.gov.au/Innovation-and-Science-Australia/Documents/B-Ferris-Westmead-Speech-5-Oct-2016.pdf
- Freeman, C. (1995). The national system of innovation: In historical perspective. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 19(10), 5–24. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.cje.a035309.Google Scholar
- Fund, C., El-Chichakli, B., Patermann, C., & Dieckhoff, P. (2015). Bioeconomy policy (part II): Synopsis of national strategies around the world. Berlin: Office of the Bioeconomy Council.Google Scholar
- Gee, J. P., Hull, G., & Lankshear, C. (1996). The new world work order behind the language of the new capitalism. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
- Haggerson, N. L. (1991). Philosophical inquiry: Amplitative criticism. In E. C. Short (Ed.), Forms of curriculum inquiry (pp. 43–60). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
- Kaiser, R., & Prange, H. (2004). The reconfiguration of national innovation systems—The example of German biotechnology. Research Policy, 33, 395–408. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2003.09.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Mcloughlin, L. (2016). Turnbull’s major innovation has been reinventing the term ‘innovation.’ New Matilda. Retrieved from https://newmatilda.com/2016/04/18/turnbulls-major-innovation-has-been-redefining-the-term-innovation/
- OECD. (2009). The bioeconomy to 2030: Designing a policy agenda. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/futures/long-termtechnologicalsocietalchallenges/42837897.pdf
- Sinnerbrink, R. (2005). From machenschaft to biopolitics: A genealogical critique of biopower. Critical Horizons, 6, 239–265. doi: 10.1163/156851605775009447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Staffas, L., Gustavsson, M., & McCormick, K. (2013). Strategies and policies for the bioeconomy and bio-based economy: An analysis of official national approaches. Sustainability, 5, 2751–2769. doi: 10.3390/su5062751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- von Strokirch, K. (2016). Abbott’s war on the environment and Turnbull’s hot air. Social Alternatives, 35(2), 23–31.Google Scholar