AVCAL calls for enhanced innovation

There is a gap between research, and the implementation of that research into usable outcomes in the marketplace, according to the Australian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCAL).

In its submission to the Senate inquiry on Australia's Innovation system last week, AVCAL called for a new national innovation policy.

"We know what we have to do, but unfortunately we've continued to ignore the ‘development' side of ‘research and development'," AVCAL chief Yasser El-Ansary said.

"We have to recognise that supportive innovation policy systems play a critical role in taking research from the laboratory to the marketplace, and this is particularly true for small and medium-sized economies like ours."

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AVCAL's key recommendations include introducing a $500 million translational innovation fund to bring in matching private capital into high-risk but high-potential early stage companies, and a translational medical innovation fund funded from 10 per cent of the proposed $1 billion endowment of the Medical Research Future Fund.

It also wants an improvement in migration policies to strengthen innovation, introduction of quarterly research and development tax credits for early stage companies, and a strengthening of the nexus between publicly-funded research and economic outcomes.