Australia could deliver breakthroughs in clean energy, battery technologies, artificial intelligence, and vaccines, an industry group has predicted, if policies are urgently changed to boost local research and development.
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering issued the call on Monday in a report outlining changes it said could lift research investments from historic lows and improve collaboration between businesses and research groups.
The changes, it said, could elevate Australia from its current innovation ranking of 24th worldwide.
The call comes less than a week after federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic released a discussion paper into the state of research and development in Australia, and warned the country was languishing at "the bottom of the class" due to falling investment.
The latest report, called Boosting Australia's Innovation, incorporates research undertaken over six years, as well as three roundtable discussions with more than 150 representatives from industry, government, and academia.
It recommended the federal government introduce tax incentives for investments in science, technology, and engineering start-ups, and create a a strategy to boost research spending to three per cent of gross domestic product, up from the current level of 1.68 per cent.
Changes were also needed to increase collaboration between businesses and research organisations, the report found, and a central resource hub could help researchers identify commercial and funding opportunities, and access legal assistance.
Boosting the number of R&D projects could benefit more than just local organisations and the Australian economy, the academy's chief executive Kylie Walker said, but could have a global impact.
Australian researchers had been responsible for creating vaccines, solar cell technologies, and at-home bowel cancer screening kits, she said, but many innovations were merely discovered and not commercialised in Australia.
"A lot of the stuff we're doing in clean energy, battery technologies, and energy collection technologies in Australia has been world-leading but we haven't been making those things here," Ms Walker told AAP.
"If we are able to connect those dots for emerging innovations and we're able to not just invent it but also make it here, sell it here, there is enormous potential in Australia."
Changes in Australian R&D policies would need to target investment culture, the report found, by encouraging universities to commercialise their findings and introducing stable, long-term funding for projects.
Major political parties should also recognise that funding would need to extend beyond election cycles, Ms Walker said, to allow researchers to achieve significant breakthroughs.
"There is definitely a political hunger for Australian manufacturing to grow, for Australian industry to grow and for our independence, economically, to grow," she said.
"There's not necessarily a universal agreement on what needs to happen for that to be the case."
The R&D report comes days after the federal government opened submissions into a discussion paper on R&D investment in Australia as part of a strategic review conducted by industry experts and led by Tesla chair Robyn Denholm.
Submission into the consultation will be open until April, with findings due after a further round of consultation.
