{"id":38941,"date":"2023-10-20T14:59:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/beyond-the-buzzword-federal-secretary-glenys-beauchamp-on-what-innovation-really-means-for-government-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:59:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:50","slug":"beyond-the-buzzword-federal-secretary-glenys-beauchamp-on-what-innovation-really-means-for-government-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/beyond-the-buzzword-federal-secretary-glenys-beauchamp-on-what-innovation-really-means-for-government-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the buzzword: Federal secretary Glenys Beauchamp on what innovation really means for government &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"332\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Glenys-Beauchamp-ipaa-act-640x332.jpg\" alt=\"Department of Industry, Innovation and Science Secretary Glenys Beauchamp\" title=\"Glenys-Beauchamp-ipaa-act\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: The Mandarin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Buzzword fatigue is not an option at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. At a recent conference, Secretary Glenys Beauchamp discussed the real meaning of innovation for government, as a facilitator, a catalyst and an exemplar.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Beauchamp was\u00a0delighted to have the words innovation and science re-attached to the federal department she leads, but admitted candidly she feels the pressure of being front and centre in the Prime Minister\u2019s signature policy as both facilitator and exemplar.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of the first role, innovation is far more than a buzzword for Beauchamp, an economist by academic background.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a recent Institute for Public Administration Australia (ACT Branch) conference, she got straight to the practical point of the National Innovation and Science Agenda: \u201cas much as 50% of long-term economic growth comes from innovation,\u201d according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.<\/p>\n<p>What is the role of government in this process?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the portfolio that I\u2019m in, most of us economists talk about our involvement as addressing areas of market value,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example: access to information, developing a skills base, ensuring we\u2019ve got a good regulatory framework; that the macro frameworks for operating are effective. In this sense, the government is very much a facilitator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/191576445\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/191576445\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IPAA ACT 2016 Conference &#8211; Session 2 highlights<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/ipaaact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IPAA ACT<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Conference host Virginia Haussegger later asked Beauchamp directly about the sense that innovation had become a buzzword or a cliche.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it has been used as a buzzword but if I look at some of the buzzwords of the past, about continuous improvement and all of those things, I mean it\u2019s really accepting that we\u2019re operating in an environment of change and you want to do your best and you want to be thinking of new things,\u201d said the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science secretary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s all about \u2026 being open to what\u2019s possible and taking the initiative to do something about it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we do want to get away from innovation being used as a clich\u00e9, and I think it probably has [become one], and it probably does get used a lot and I think maybe sometimes being in public service, the innovation is our responsibility because we\u2019re running with the innovation agenda as such, but I think it\u2019s a much more, a whole of government, whole of community thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As well as making sure the regulatory, taxation and workplace relations frameworks are as \u201cenabling\u201d as possible for businesses, while investing in education and research, government is also expected to be an innovation catalyst, she said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Beauchamp, \u201cthere definitely was an announcement effect\u201d from the NISA in the form of a \u201csignificant\u201d positive effect on the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also, we heard and we see in the National Innovation and Science agenda that government is an exemplar, and the Prime Minister\u2019s expectation is the government is to be an exemplar,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I must say I feel under a huge amount of pressure in my portfolio, with \u2018innovation\u2019 in the department\u2019s name, and if we\u2019re not leading by example, by showing the rest of the public service what is possible but also walking the talk in terms of what we\u2019re asking businesses to do, then I think we\u2019d be failing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For the public service to walk the talk as an innovation exemplar, its advice should favour \u201cusing the government levers that we have got\u201d and avoid creating another layer of \u201cprogrammatic confetti\u201d around areas like tax and procurement.<\/p>\n<h3>The imperative to rethink, not just re-tweak<\/h3>\n<p>As Beauchamp warned later in the panel discussion, policy advice to government is now a very \u201ccontestable\u201d space, meaning there are lots of competing providers and if the government as an advice \u201ccustomer\u201d doesn\u2019t find what it is hearing from the public service compelling, it may well go elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we aren\u2019t responding to the customer\u2019s needs, we become irrelevant and we would be abolished,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Treasury and PM&amp;C are the long stayers but the rest of us, the government does make changes to organisations and governance and I think it\u2019s up to us.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe get appropriated a lot of money to run big departments, sometimes small departments, so the sole imperative should be on us to deliver, as it is in business.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t think we take that attitude.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we [as public servants] very much [repeat] what we\u2019ve always done, and we just tweak it with a bunch of processes&#8230; rather than looking at the whole canvas and saying, \u2018What can we do with the resources we\u2019ve got?&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And we\u2019ve got a responsibility to run it for the long term and to be sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For example, the government is currently considering the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/minister.industry.gov.au\/ministers\/hunt\/media-releases\/rd-tax-incentive-review-report-released-consultation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">review of the Research and Development Tax Incentive<\/a>, which aimed to determine what impact it is having and how it could be more effective in encouraging more private money to be spent on R&amp;D.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do need to do more about what we\u2019re getting in terms of that impact, and we\u2019re going through that process with the recent review,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>She said \u201cthe history of the most innovative nations on earth\u201d showed that government should be a lot more than a facilitator for the private sector, pointing out that a lot of \u201crevolutionary technologies\u201d have come out of government-funded research organisations.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themandarin.com.au\/72772-glenys-beauchamp-on-making-innovation-more-than-a-buzzword\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Mandarin<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StartUpSmart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/StartupSmartnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/startupsmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/au\/podcast\/starting-change-podcast\/id1154324497?mt=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">iTunes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The Mandarin Buzzword fatigue is not an option at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. At a recent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}