On 25 January 2021, the NSW Premier,The Honourable Gladys Berejiklian, launched the Turning Ideas into Jobs – Accelerating Research & Development in NSW Action Plan. The Action Plan is the NSW Government response to an unprecedented disruption to the NSW economy, arising from technological advances, natural disasters and a devastating global pandemic, which collectively have put ongoing economic prosperity under pressure.

The response to these challenges seeks to build a more resilient, self-sufficient and innovative state economy.  The Action Plan sets out five recommended Priority Actions to foster the state’s innovation profile through R&D that is undertaken in universities, institutes and technology businesses.  The actions are:

1. Launch a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program – providing competitive grants for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to find and commercialise innovative solutions to well-defined problems for NSW Government agencies.
2. Boost open data – release new government datasets so businesses can make better decisions, entrepreneurs can build new businesses and the government can solve complex challenges.
3. Turbocharge precincts – develop precincts to attract national and global technology industries and investment, and drive collaboration between universities, research organisations, start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs, to commercialise R&D.
4. Target strategic support for NSW universities – collaborate on research that drives future NSW strategic growth industries and research-led industry attraction, and better leverage Commonwealth Government research funding.
5. Establish an R&D matchmaking platform – better connect research ‘sellers’ and ‘buyers’ and link researchers to research infrastructure and expertise.

To read more about this initiative, please follow the link to the report Accelerating R&D in NSW: Turning ideas into jobs, which is available from the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet website.