Australia’s 10 Greatest Competitiveness Challenges – Innovation
Regional New South Wales and Victoria are, in general, not yet pulling themselves forward as genuine leaders of innovation. This is our nation’s greatest competitive challenge to innovation, identified in the Regional Australia Institute’s (RAI) Innovation theme paper – the fifth installment in the [In]Sight series.
With a world defined by constant changes to the economy, technology, environment and population, overall innovation trends highlight that regions positioning themselves to respond to these changes are more able to succeed. This report examines the key trends within innovation, measuring two aspects; the potential capacity for innovation and the extent to which this capacity is translated into products and processes.
[In]Sight shows our regional cities have a very good innovative capacity on the whole, with Industry and Service Hub, as well as Connected Lifestyle Regions showing strength in this area. However, the sparsely populated and remote Heartlands appear to struggle in this theme.
Furthermore, despite having Australia’s most innovative capital cities, New South Wales and Victoria’s regional economies are ‘Our Greatest Competitive Challenge’ in this area. Therefore, in order for their regional areas to benefit from the potential return of business, skills and investment back to the eastern states after the resources boom, these areas must put themselves forward as having innovative capacity.
Overall, the Innovation theme, scored by regional type, place regional areas on average at about two-thirds the innovative strength of their metropolitan counterparts, with regional cities performing at about three-quarters the strength of their metropolitan counterparts.
Top 10 Ranked Regional LGA’s
- Huon Valley, TAS, Connected Lifestyle Region
- Armidale Dumaresq, NSW, Industry and Service Hub
- Yass Valley, NSW, Connected Lifestyle Region
- Palerang, NSW, Connected Lifestyle Region
- Western Downs, QLD, Heartland Region
- Merredin, WA, Heartland Region
- Ararat, VIC, Heartland Region
- Carnarvon, WA, Heartland Region
- Bruce Rock, WA, Heartland Region
- Palmerston, NT, Regional City
Top 5 Regions
- Northern Territory – Northern
- Gold Coast, QLD
- Tasmania – South
- Darling Downs and South West, QLD
- Southern Inland, NSW
