National action needed to fuel creative and innovation industries

The urgent need for Australia to play global economic catch-up by supporting creative and innovation industries is detailed in findings and case studies identified over five years by a federally-funded research and industry support agency.

The sector currently employs more than 611,000 people contributing revenue of $90.19 billion to Australia's economy, but languished during the resources boom, allowing rival nations to forge ahead.

In a publication being launched at the University of Technology Sydney today, the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) outlines enormous challenges faced by small to medium sized enterprises to thrive while navigating through government policy and which need government assistance and leadership.

Creative and innovation industry leaders, media and business commentators, academics and economists at the launch will hear insights gained by the CIIC through work with more than 1500 creative businesses between 2009-2015.

While based at UTS and working in collaboration with leading academics, the CIIC created a nation-wide network of business advisors and set foundations for future government investment in and support for the industry.

UTS Provost Professor Peter Booth said the CIIC and UTS saw Australia's future prosperity resting on the nation nurturing successful new creative and innovation enterprises and delivering higher education that honed creative minds and shaped new entrepreneurs and business leaders.

"State and federal politicians cannot use terms like 'the smart state', the 'clever country' or 'the innovation nation' if necessary government support isn't forthcoming; nor the right kinds of education and business incentives for emerging entrepreneurs," Professor Booth said.

"Government can and must provide creative SMEs with resources and support to help them scale up. The best model for success is for industry, government and higher education to work together to create a world-class strategy. The CIIC has shown through its ground-breaking work how this can be made possible."

The CIIC's Creative Business in Australia was written for owners and managers of creative businesses, for politicians, policy makers and peak business thinkers and leaders. It considers the critical role the creative workforce plays in value creation across all industries, particularly manufacturing, mining and post-farm food production.

"Governments and businesses looking for innovation as a key driver of economic growth will find it in the creative industries, which are, on many occasions, also innovation incubators," Professor Booth said.

"The importance of work within emerging creative innovation enterprises is often tested through small, low-cost projects, the success of which can be scaled up to serve the needs of big businesses in new and valuable ways.

"UTS has long understood this and acted to ensure our education model and approach to research match the opportunities available in these times. It is why we partnered with CIIC, it is why we are the first Australian university to offer a Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation, and it is why we collaborate with local government and industries in projects to mentor new entrepreneurs."

In August this year, now Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited UTS to announce a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) project to accelerate the pace of digital transformation across the Australian Government, with a number of DTO project team members working out of UTS.

At the time he said the DTO needed to adopt an agile, startup-like culture and would seek recruits for the project with the right mix of skills and attitude to speed up the transformation of government services.

"It makes good sense for the Government to have DTO team members work with us in the heart of Australia's digital creative hub and on the campus in which UTS has invested more than a billion dollars transforming its buildings, facilities and learning technologies to enable students and researchers to harness the opportunities of the digital and innovation age," Professor Booth said.

"A high concentration of tech companies such as Google, Atlassian, IBM, AirBnB and others are based in our precinct, along with many new entrepreneurial startup ventures.

"UTS has heeded the call coming from the work done by the CIIC. We are energetically working with like-minded, future-focussed partners to ensure our students and researchers are equipped to win inspiring jobs, shape brilliant careers and develop the smarts to forge business ventures that will transform the nation as a global creative innovation leader."

Download Creative Business in Australia: Learnings from the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) 2009–2015 via UTS e-Press.