Lights, Canberra, inaction

Earlier this month I read two very different policy announcements about innovation. The first came from the European Commission and declared hopes that 2009 would be the European Year of Innovation.

The image of the light bulb comes from the official EU press release. Both the image and the sentiment surrounding the announcement speaks volumes about the top down notions held by the Commission about how to realize economic gains from Europe's rich and diverse research base.

A prime example of this top down, and frankly wishful, thinking is the European Institute of Technology (EIT). Intended to rival the MIT as a centre for innovation and the commercialization of research, the EIT was officially launched on March 11th this year by the European Parliament.

If the Commission's hopes are realized and 2009 is declared the European Year of Innovation, the EIT will doubtlessly take centre stage at the celebrations. The only problem is that no one seems willing to come to the party.

The Commission expects universities and companies to fund a lion's share of the EIT's ambitious development costs. Yet the EIT concept has received what can only be described as scorn from academia, research policy groups such as the European Science Foundation and Industry.

Few predict that the initiative will result in any measurable degree of action.

Canberra
The second announcement on innovation came from what I would call a thinking person's academic policy think tank, the Group of Eight based in Canberra, Australia.

The announcement describes how Australian spending on basic research in 2005 has fallen to a third of the levels observed at the beginning of the 1990s.

As Go8 chairperson Alan Robson points out, changes in the way research is funded has created a situation in which "the winners are losers".

Government funding to the top performing research universities fails to cover the total costs of research, effectively forcing the most successful universities to cross subsidize their research from international student fees.

Robson also estimates that the funding shortfall has created a situation in which the top universities of Australia have deferred Aus$1.5 billion in university maintenance activities.

Urging policy makers to think beyond the orthodoxy of "turning ideas into money", Robson says that his priority is towards "building relationships and better communication between universities and the communities they serve".

The focus on innovation alone is failing to achieve this goal.