STI¹⁰ Performance Targets

The success of the STI¹⁰ Vision is gauged by how well the interlocking strategies of Building capability and infrastructure, Momentum through collaboration and Developing people and communities are collectively implemented. While we have ten discrete performance targets, successfully reaching these targets demands a holistic approach. 

South Australia’s Regional Innovation System

The set of indicators presented in this section provides an overview of South Australia’s ongoing performance in some aspects of our Regional Innovation System.

South Australia has, from its inception, been a centre of innovation, whether in agriculture, industry, the creative arts or social policy. This history bestows a particular advantage on us as a small, highly industrialised regional economy.

The idea of a Regional Innovation System gives us a way of thinking about the most innovative elements in the State’s economic and industrial structure as an interconnected web of people, commercial firms, research institutions and funding bodies, each creating, absorbing and applying innovative technologies, products and organisational practices.

An efficient innovation system encourages economies of scale, collaborative advantages, fluid communications and fast, adaptive responses to new challenges.

Core Elements of the System

• A well funded public sector research system
• An informed community primed for understanding and applying new ideas
• A skilled, literate workforce
• A business sector ready and willing to invest in new technologies
• A strong and well governed system of intellectual property
• People and firms collaborating as well as competing
• Easy and efficient ways to exchange new information
• Access to risk capital
• Access to enabling infrastructure in communication and production techniques

The South Australian innovation system faces unique challenges. The size of our economy and our geographical characteristics shape our relations with the rest of Australia and the rest of the world. As radical changes sweep across the international landscape, an efficient innovation system will help us to grow and prosper as a community, staying connected with the centres of growth in the world and confidently confronting the emerging environmental challenges, industrial technologies and geo-political changes of the new century.