Content
A Technology Park is Overdue
2 October 2004
International conferences can be sobering experiences, and can
provide a reality check for what we are up against in the emerging
world economy.
For years we have been trying to get a science and technology
park at Sippy Downs to provide a base for local and new firms
interested in research and development. Despite support from
governments, there seems to be one complication after another,
impeding and delaying a start, and we'll likely lose promising
businesses as a result.
SunROC also has the technology precinct at Sippy Downs as one of
its top priorities. It is now widely accepted that it is invariably
those parks closely aligned with universities that have the best
chances of long term success. They generate good jobs, and in
regions that have well established parks, unemployment rates are
typically around 2 per cent.
They are jobs that the Coast desperately needs to create, so the
delays in establishing a park are deeply frustrating.
A circuit-breaker is needed and international experience
suggests that governments have to intervene in such situations.
Even if there is a solution, recent information has reaffirmed
how difficult it will be for this region to compete internationally
in the knowledge economy. The US, Europe, China and India are
surging further and further ahead, leaving Australia in their
wake.
If the Sunshine Coast united as a region, of if the region were
considered South-East Queensland, we would still not approximate
the power of the world's major centres. A wholly networked
Australia might not even make it.
In the top forty research and technology centres of the world,
no Australian region and its universities comes close to Tokyo,
London, Osaka, San Francisco, Paris and others in driving the
technologies of the new knowledge economies.
To try to clarify exactly what strategies we could adopt, last
week I attended an international conference which focused on
'regional attractiveness in the knowledge economy'. The most
successful science and technology parks, we were told, are trending
toward major urban centres, where university research, pools of
skilled labour, large markets, liberal attitudes, better
communications and easier regulatory environments, are more often
in evidence.
Amongst the 600 delegates at the Conference, from over sixty
countries, there were a small number from Australian science parks
and incubators, but no one from a governmental agency to hear how
governments need to take a strong lead in the difficult
establishment phase.
Interestingly, there are few or no opportunities for even senior
public servants to attend overseas conferences, probably reflecting
pressures of public opinion that regard such activities as
financially wasteful.
That is a tragedy. If university staff were restricted in that
way, in linking with the world and its universities, universities
would be unable to fulfil their roles as knowledge generators.
It was disconcerting for me to see first hand, that despite the
enormous gains we've made as a 'Smart State', how far behind
Europe, for example, we are.
The European Union has really speeded up the international flow
of people, knowledge, finance and technology. There is no
short-sighted criticism of travel, and economic advancement is the
result.
The stakes are high, and countries like Brazil encouraged forty
of their technology leaders to attend the conference and benefit
from the ideas, insights and networking.
It's going to take a concerted effort, working together, and
with many people involved if we are going to avoid losing ground in
the emerging new world order and the knowledge economy. We are
going to have to take some urgent steps to generate those important
jobs, knowledge and research.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast