SEVERAL WA research universities have welcomed the thrust of the recently released review of Australia’s National Innovation system but say there are still concerns to be addressed.

The 200-page Venturous Australia report released this week makes more than 70 recommendations across several key areas including business innovation, strengthening people and skills, excellence in national research, information and market design, and taxation.

Professor Doug McEachern, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at the University of WA welcomes the report’s findings, saying they address many key issues, including the move to fully fund university research and increase the stipend for research students.

However he says there are still some areas that need attention.

“I think there’s still a gap, even after these recommendations have been made, where ideas need further public investment before they’re ready to be taken up by business or business development opportunities.

“And that still remains one of the major stumbling blocks in the Australian innovation system.”

Curtin University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of R&D, Professor Linda Kristjanson, also welcomes the move to fully fund university research, along with the emphasis on international engagement and changes to the tax credit system.

She also backs an increase in stipends.

“We have been very concerned that we have been falling behind in terms of our research training capacity and that the quantum for those stipends has been so low it’s almost at the poverty level,” she says.

Despite the overall positive response to the report, she says there are concerns over two recommendations linking research block grants and training to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative, which would discourage external collaborations and would not be well received by the business sector.

“Those (recommendations) are the ones that worry us most, and we will certainly be speaking up to identify some of the risks associated with funding it that way.

“I think ERA is much too discipline specific and will probably not encourage multi-disciplinary research.

“Any mechanism that creates silos and narrows our research focus would not be seen to be consistent with an innovation agenda.”

Murdoch University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Yovich, also believes the report gives a clear direction to reforming Australia’s innovation system.

“In particular, the report addresses the need to increase research funding to universities as a proportion of GDP to maintain Australia’s international competitiveness, to fully fund the costs of university research activities and to recognise that a strong and sustainable public research sector requires universities to be providers of research, not investors in research,” he said in a media release.

However, speaking as convenor of the Innovative Research Universities consortium of six Australian universities, Professor Yovich raised concerns about the report’s proposals to narrow the basis for the distribution of research block funding to include only national competitive grants.

The Federal Government is due to issue a response to the review’s recommendations by the end of the year.

A copy of the Venturous Australia report is available here .