The South Australian government will launch a new innovation challenge program to drive industry and research collaboration under a new plan for its innovation precincts.
Focused on “the most significant issues confronting our economy and community”, the program announced as part of the Innovation Places Leadership Framework 2024-2034 on Monday revives a program run by the former Coalition government and will launch in the next two to five years
The new program will be led by the state’s Department of State Development, just like the former SA Innovation Challenge program in the 10-year EXCITE innovation strategy launched in 2020.
The former program, launched in 2021, was similarly focused on encouraging industry and research collaboration while creating opportunities to commercialise research and development.
The theme of the inaugural “Augmenting Ability” challenge called for solutions aimed at helping the elderly live “independently, productively, with dignity and wellbeing”. It made $915,000 in commitments through a single funding round.
South Australia’s new innovation challenges program is one of the actions under priority area two of the framework, which focuses on facilitating greater connections and collaborations through the state’s 22 innovation hubs, including Lot Fourteen, the Tonsley Innovation District, and the Adelaide BioMed City.
The other priority areas are stronger leadership and governance, growing innovation capability, and targeted investment and business attraction.
Target industries include defence, space, advanced manufacturing, health and medical, and critical technologies like AI, quantum, robotics, BioTech, and cyber.
The plan includes a 25-point action plan, although the government only expects to achieve six of the actions within the next two years.
Other short term actions include establishing state-wide governance arrangements for innovation places alongside a supporting places implementation and coordination team.
A key focus in the medium term (three to five years) will be to consider of future ownership arrangements of state-owned precincts like Lot Fourteen and the Tonsley Innovation District and Technology Park.
In the long term, the state government will “assess value of establishing regulatory ‘sandboxes’ based at the major SA innovation places”.
Launching the framework at the Australian Space Discovery Centre at Lot Fourteen on Monday, Premier Peter Malinauskas said innovation holds the key to unlocking the state’s future and “greater economic complexity”.
“Right now, South Australia is in a unique position to offer the world both what it wants and what it needs,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“We can allow global geopolitical and economic uncertainties to impact our lives, or we can see this time as an opportunity to innovate and show the world what we can do.”
State innovation places and Lot Fourteen’s state project lead Diane Dixon said the state’s “commitment to innovation is poised to transform the state’s economic landscape as we embark on building the SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines”.
On Monday, defence multinational BAE Systems also announced it would establish its Australian head office at Lot Fourteen as an anchor tenant at the hub’s incoming Innovation Centre.
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