a REPORT PREPARED FOR THE British High Commission

Impacts, benefits and challenges of UK-Australia research collaboration

An intern with the Australian National University Internship Program

Brody Hannan 7th of June, 2017

Word Count: 4,175

Executive Summary

This report presents a preliminary mapping of the key collaborations in the UK-Australian

innovation, science and research (ISR) system, as well as a description of the perceived

benefits, challenges and impacts of Australian universities to collaborating with universities

and businesses in the UK. The aim of this paper was to develop recommendations for the UK’s

Science Innovation Network, to enable more effective policy and support for Australian

universities seeking to enhance their international and intersectoral research collaborations

with the UK.

This paper was developed in response to the Performance Review of the Australian Innovation

Science and Research System report that was presented by Innovation Science Australia in

2016, which found Australian universities to have low levels of both domestic and

international intersectoral1 research collaboration. Whilst the Australian Research Council is

currently undergoing ways of tracking the impacts of Australian universities’ research through

its Engagement and Impact Assessment scheduled for 2018, work is yet to be done on

comprehensively mapping the entire Australian ISR system, particularly when it comes to

intersectoral research.

Data was collected through data-mining databases of the Australian Research Council Linkage

Grant recipients, as well as surveying Deputy Vice-Chancellors and Deans responsible for

research at each of Australia’s 422 universities. The data metrics that were collected from these

sources were ones that were identified by the High Commission as being useful to the UK’s

Science and Innovation Network – the key researchers involved in the university’s most

significant research collaborations, as well as what they thought were the benefits, challenges

and impacts of collaborating with organisations in the UK.

The data was examined through a network analysis to map the collaborations amongst the UK-

Australia research system, however details of the network and differences in collaboration

1 Intersectoral collaboration is referred to as the research collaborations between institutions of different sectors – most commonly used in this instance as universities collaborating with organisations in the private, government and not-for-profit sectors. This definition is consistent with the National Innovation and Science Agenda and Australian Research Council’s 2016 Engagement and Impact Assessment Consultation Paper. 2 Of the 42 Australian universities contacted, only 14 universities submitted responses to the research project. It should be noted however, that amongst the 14 universities who participated in the study, all eight of the Group of Eight universities were represented.

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priorities amongst Australian universities are not explained as it is outside the scope of the

project and would require much further research.

The mapping showed that research collaborations between universities contain significantly

more overlap in collaborations then compared to the collaborations with other sectors – where

often research partnerships were unique. Furthermore, Australian universities see great

benefit in collaborating with the UK and its global reputation for high quality research, and see

international and intersectoral collaboration as a key part of the knowledge transfer process

from academic to other sectors.

The findings also describe significant challenges faced by universities when engaging in

international and intersectoral collaborations. Smaller universities reported difficulties in

establishing connections with research institutions due to the high costs of communicating

across the long distance and time-differences associated with the UK, as well as a lack of

knowledge in how to formalise research agreements across the differences in legal systems

between Australia and the UK.

This paper makes several recommendations. Firstly, whilst this report used Australian

universities to map UK-Australia research collaborations, much of the mapping is incomplete

due to some universities not providing sufficiently robust data. Further studies should

therefore build upon this paper’s methodology by collecting similar data from more

universities, particularly across the UK, as well as seeking the responses of other sectors about

the benefits and challenges of intersectoral collaborations.

Secondly, the Science Innovation Network should facilitate the introduction of British business

leaders with Australian academic researchers to overcome the challenges of establishing

connections with the UK. Guidance should also be provided to smaller universities to help them

formalise research agreements with organisations in the UK. Lastly, the British High

Commission should play a more active role in promoting the global research reputation of the

UK, and reaffirming Britain’s commitment to supporting Australian research, amidst an era

where Australia has a large regional focus upon Asia.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Cate Setterfield at the British High Commission Canberra for her support

during my time at the High Commission. Cate gave me many opportunities to gain experience

in many facets of her work – writing blog articles, attending meetings and developing the High

Commission’s youth engagement strategy. These experiences helped me follow my passion for

STEM, education and youth policy.

Thanks are due to the other ANIP interns at Burgmann College, Milo Goldacre and Colin Balog,

for their words of encouragement throughout my internship.

Lastly, a great amount of appreciate goes to all the people both at the High Commission and

externally who provided me with direction to source my data. In particular, Sarah Howard

from the Australian Research Council, Laurence Brown from the Australian National

University, as well as all other Deputy Vice Chancellors, Deans and academics from Australia

and the UK who participated in the study.

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List of Abbreviations

ANU – Australian National University

ARC – Australian Research Council

BERD – Business Expenditure on Research and Development

BHC – British High Commission

CSIRO – Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

ERA – Excellence in Research Australia

EU – European Union

FCO – Foreign Commonwealth Office

GDP – Gross Domestic Product

GERD – Gross Expenditure on Research and Development

GOVERD – Government Expenditure on Research and Development

HDR – Higher Degree by Research

HERD – Higher Education Expenditure on Research and Development

ISA – Innovation and Science Australia

ISR – Innovation, Science and Research

NISA – National Innovation and Science Agenda

OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

REF – Research Excellence Framework

R&D – Research and Development

SIN – Science and Innovation Network

UK – United Kingdom

US – United States

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................................... 1ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................................................................3LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..................................................................................................................................................4

CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND………………………………………………………...………………………………6

CHAPTER TWO: IDENTIFYING KEY PLAYERS OF RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS……………..8A METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................................................................................8B RESULTS – KEY COLLABORATIONS............................................................................................................................9

CHAPTER THREE: ASSESSING THE BENEFITS, CHALLENGES AND IMPACTS OF UK-AUSTRALIA RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS…………………………………………………………………...12

A METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................................................................12B RESULTS....................................................................................................................................................................... 12

I Benefits of UK-Australia Research Collaborations...................................................................................12II Challenges of UK-Australia Research Collaborations...........................................................................14III Impacts of UK-Australia Research Collaborations................................................................................15

CHAPTER FOUR: IMPROVING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SCIENCE INNOVATION NETWORK……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16

A DATA RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................................................................16I Data Discussion....................................................................................................................................................... 16II What further data should be collected?......................................................................................................17

B POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS....................................................................................................................................18

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………..19

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20

APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20APPENDIX 1..................................................................................................................................................................... 20

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Chapter One: Background

Australian policymakers have promoted the role science, research and innovation can play in

overcoming the slowed economic growth of Australia in recent years[1]. Australian

governments, businesses and universities alike are also following a recent trend[2] of Western

countries towards increasing dialogue around the role of research collaboration in enhancing

innovation in the academic and industry sectors.

In December 2015, the Australian Government announced its National Innovation and Science

Agenda[3], which included the establishment of Innovation and Science Australia (ISA) – an

independent body aimed at advising the Government on issues of innovation, science and

research.

Soon after its establishment, the ISA conducted a review of the Australian innovation, science

and research (ISR) system, which concluded that Australia needs to “significantly lift [its] game

if [it] wants to be a top tier innovation nation”[4]. The main weaknesses the report made of

Australia were the “few direct mechanisms to support knowledge transfer” between academia

to other sectors, and “limited…collaboration between researchers and businesses”[4].

There exists research collaboration strategies and programs overseas that facilitate

collaboration in research and innovation. The UK’s Department of Business, Innovation &

Skills operate the Science and Innovation Network (SIN)[5], which works with British

embassies, high commissions and consulates in 31 countries, including Australia, to support

the implementation of UK innovation policy in the host country.

SIN Australia aims to encourage high level research cooperation between Australia and the UK,

by supporting relationships between British and Australian universities, businesses, research

institutions and innovation agencies[6]. A more effective SIN in Australia will lead to greater

research collaborations for Australian universities, and thus enhance the Australia’s knowledge

transfer process and therefore enable greater levels of research innovation in Australia.

This report seeks to increase the effectiveness of the SIN in Australia by identifying key

collaborations between Australian universities and British organisations to firstly map the UK-

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Australia ISR system, and secondly contextualise the benefits, impacts and challenges

Australian researchers face when working with UK research institutions. The British High

Commission could contribute to enabling innovation in Australia working with SIN to develop

research collaborations between the two countries.

The definition and scope of ‘research collaboration’ explored in this paper is consistent with

previous reports from Innovation and Science Australia[4]. It includes ‘basic research’3 and

‘applied research’4, or a combination of both. Whilst the National Innovation and Science

Agenda, the Science Innovation Network and Innovation Science Australia all give particular

focus to subjects of scientific disciplines, this paper considers research collaborations from all

disciplines. This was done so that the findings of this study may be useful for not only the UK

Science and Innovation Network, but also Australian government research agencies such as the

Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Chapter Two: Identifying key players of research collaborations

3 Basic research is defined by ISA as research aimed at creating new knowledge without a particular use or application in view.4 Applied research is defined by the ISA as research directed towards a specific aim or objective.

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A MethodologyThis report has established the need to examine the research collaborations of Australian

universities, and suggests the UK’s Science Innovation Network as a potential mechanism to

enhancing Australian universities’ low-levels of intersectoral research. Identifying and

mapping the key existing collaborations that Australian universities are engaged in with the UK

would thus be an important first step in developing the ISR system between Australian and the

UK.

Data collection for this mapping consisted of phone calls and emails to Deputy Vice

Chancellors, Pro Vice Chancellors and Deans of Australian universities responsible for

research, innovation or global commercialisation, and requesting a list of their research

collaborations with businesses and universities in the UK. This data was compiled and

underwent a social network analysis5 to visually portray the links and collaborations that

Australian universities has with British research organisations.

Whilst every Australian university was contacted to submit their existing research

collaborations, only 14 of the universities participated in the study. Government research

organisations such as the Australian Research Council were also contacted for their input into

the study. A full list of the participants of the study is displayed in Appendix 1.

To meet the time constraints of the project, universities were only asked to provide brief, key

details of each of their collaborations, such as the key researchers involved and the title of the

project. The data did not contain discipline of research, or the history behind the development

of the research.

A social network analysis was used to visually portray the existing collaborations forming two

mappings – Australian universities collaborating with British universities, and for Australian

universities collaborating with non-academic sectors in the UK.

Lastly, this report does not attempt to compare the research collaboration efforts made by each

of the Australian universities; acknowledging that universities may not have been able to

provide a full list or the complete details of their research given the time constraints of the

5 The social network analysis used in this study was conducted using Google Fusion Tables – which maps entries in an Excel Spreadsheet to a node on the network map. Google Fusion Tables was chosen for its simplicity and useability given the limited time frame of the project and the many thousand entries contained within the data responses.

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project. This is for a number of reasons; firstly it would exceed the scope of the project in

terms of resources, time and practicality. Secondly, it is not necessary to explain these trends

and differences in research priorities amongst the Australian universities to be able to map the

ISR system – this is more the domain of existing organisations such as the Research Excellence

Framework (REF) in the UK and the Australian Research Council (ARC) in Australia.

B Results – Key CollaborationsWhilst Australian universities reported research collaborations with British businesses,

government organisations and universities, most of the non-Group of Eight6 universities did

not submit data containing intersectoral collaborations – or if they did, only a small number.

The reasons given by these small universities for this difficulty in finding intersectoral

collaborations with British organisations were that many of their industry partners were with

Australian Government Departments and local not-for-profits, rather than overseas.

Even at larger universities, academics noted that “most of the work done with industry is done

indirectly through another UK academic institution, as opposed to direct engagement”. The

results showed this with many7 more collaborations being submitted for academic

collaborations than those that were intersectoral. This supports findings from the ISR review

that university-university collaborations were much more common than intersectoral

collaborations in Australia.

Figure 2.a displays the mapping of the of the intersectoral research collaboration network that

Australian universities are engaged in with British organisations. Australian universities are

represented as blue nodes, while British organisations are displayed in yellow. The size of each

node corresponds to the number of collaborations the institution reported.

6 The Group of Eight (Go8) universities are an alliance of universities in Australia committed to research. The British equivalent, the Russell Group, is a group of the 24 oldest and top universities in the UK, and make up the majority of UK universities research expenditure.7 The term ‘many’ is used deliberately to avoid any quantitative comparison between the number of academic and intersectoral research collaborations being conducted between Australian universities and British organisations. Whilst this information may be useful, to comment on such a preliminary finding would be far from accurate.

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I Australian university – British intersectoral collaboration

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II Australian university- British university collaboration

The network analysis showed that universities in Australia and the UK are highly connected

through research collaborations. To succinctly represent8 these research collaborations, the

data was filtered to only graph research collaborations between Australian Group of Eight

universities and the Russell Group of Universities in the UK.

8 Whilst data was collected for 14 Australian universities, which listed collaborations with British universities outside of the Russell Group universities shown here, the network map resulting from the raw data contained so many nodes and ‘links’ that it was difficult to visualise. Statistically, this means that the Australian and British university research systems are highly interconnected and engage in a lot of collaborative research. The purpose of figure 2.b is to demonstrate that even amongst a small pool of this data, the collaborations present are highly interconnected with much overlap between university partners.

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Left: Figure 2.b: a network graph displaying the research collaborations between the Australia Group of Eight universities and the Russell Group of universities in the UK.

In the figure pictured, all Go8 universities are represented, however Newcastle University and the University of York are not represented from the Russell Group.

Chapter Three: Assessing the Benefits, Challenges and Impacts of UK-Australia Research Collaborations

A MethodologyThis report has identified key research collaborations between Australian universities and

British universities and other organisations, and examined their connections to each other

within the broader UK-Australia ISR system. This provides important contextual information

for describing the benefits, challenges and impacts perceived by Australian universities when

collaborating with the UK.

For this task, data collection consisted of phone calls and emails to Deputy Vice-Chancellors,

Pro Vice-Chancellors and Deans of Australian universities responsible for research, innovation

or global commercialisation, and surveying them about the benefits, impacts and challenges of

their research collaborations with the UK. These responses were then analysed and compiled

into a review, which is presented below.

The details of some of these relationships – particularly the benefits and challenges – were

often restricted by commercial confidentiality agreements between the university and its

research partner. Consequently, this report only presents the ‘overview’ benefits, challenges

and impacts perceived by university research partners, rather than the quantitative analyses.

B Results

I Benefits of UK-Australia Research Collaborations

International and intersectoral research collaborations were unanimously seen to be

“incredibly beneficial” to both the university and industry sectors, according to the academics

contacted. Many universities believed collaboration with industry assisted in keeping their

research relevant; creating more direct societal impacts while also strengthening the quality of

their research. Some academics believed wide collaboration was needed to address the issues

of most interest to society – which were often global in scope.

Working with industry in the UK was also seen as an important pathway to foreign markets,

creating globally impactful research that is “fast tracked” to European audiences. The access to

foreign markets was particularly noted by the University of Western Australia, who’s

geographical isolation from many businesses and other large universities in eastern Australia

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meant that intersectoral and international collaborations were essential in building reputation

and “maintaining global competitiveness”.

Many universities also noted the global reputation the UK has for research, recognising the

larger pool of people and research infrastructure as offering key expertise to Australian

research. Academics believed that possessing this key expertise increased the chances of their

research project receiving funding from peak bodies in both Australia and the UK, as well as

creating stronger research able to address challenging global questions.

For smaller or vocational universities, such as La Trobe University and Charles Sturt

University, working with the larger research infrastructure and reputation of the UK allowed

smaller fields higher funding and better data, due to greater attention of the discipline in the

UK.

This is the case in La Trobe’s Living with Disability Research Centre, where a research grant

partnership with the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent enabled La Trobe’s researchers to

conduct comparative research between the UK and Australia into services for people with an

intellectual disability. By expanding the work done in the UK to test the results in Australia, the

“higher quality” services of the UK and their “more robust” data enabled Australian researchers

to engage in a research field that would have been limited in Australia. Due to a “lack a critical

mass of research” in Australia, working collaboratively provided researchers from La Trobe

university access to “new ideas and a larger pool of research experience [than] we possess”.

Research collaborations with the UK also had other subsequent benefits to Australian

universities. Raising the international profile of Australian research was commonly seen as a

benefit of research collaboration with the UK. Not only did international co-authorship

showcase the expertise of Australian research to new foreign markets, but also presented

Australian researchers with the opportunity to learn from other academics and industry

researchers overseas, “broadening solutions and build[ing] tolerance” between Australian and

British researchers.

Many universities believed that research collaborations with industry lead to greater PhD

exchanges, internships and other opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students,

as well as links to further international collaborations and new opportunities for funding and

grants. The “stronger research” outcomes believed to have come out of collaborative research

was also seen to lead to a greater number of citations, ultimately resulting in higher university

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rankings, which in turn would provide greater value for students and alumni of the university,

as well as more career opportunities for current academic staff.

II Challenges of UK-Australia Research Collaborations

Whilst large research universities reported not experiencing any “particular challenges for…

researchers, the UK is one of the easier areas… to work with internationally”, the challenges

faced in collaborating with British organisations seemed to be a concern consistent across any

intersectoral or international research.

These timeless concerns focused on the inherent differences between university and industry,

such as whether academics would be interested in the problems facing industry, or the

challenge of managing the different expectations of academia and industry due to their

dissimilar culture of “publish versus profit”. Some universities also noted the challenge

academics have in maintaining contacts in companies where internal management changes and

short term employment makes it difficult to maintain contact and to influence decision makers

within an organisation.

Smaller universities such as Charles Sturt University (CSU), Deakin University, Edith Cowan

University and Murdoch University reported the high costs associated with the distance and

proximity of time zones of the UK to Australia as creating significant challenges in establishing

international or intersectoral research partnerships. Universities also noted the difficulty faced

by academics to access many UK multi-national companies, such as Rolls Royce, that didn’t

“have a presence” in Australia.

These universities noted that industry collaborations were often formed indirectly through

another UK academic institution or a personal connection of a staff member or academic, as

opposed to direct engagement from the university with the business or organisation. These

smaller, often vocational universities may also not know how to translate their existing

teaching partnerships with industries into research partnerships. This was the case with CSU

and its teaching partnership with the UK College of Policing for example, describing there being

a “need for new avenues to engage and identify interested parties”.

Some of these smaller universities were also unsure of how to formalise such research

agreements – with the differences in legal systems between the UK and Australia posing an

additional challenge for universities. Whilst larger universities did not report this as an issue,

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smaller universities such as CSU suggested that “guidance to minimise such potential [legal]

obstacles would be a valuable resource”.

Another challenge to collaboration with the UK, noted only by smaller universities, was in

relation to funding – believing the Australian Research Council and other research councils in

the UK would be hesitant in funding research conducted in another country. The challenge of

timing in attracting simultaneous funding from these different sources was also noted as a

challenge, with it being difficult to “understand each country’s social policy and service system

funding arrangements”.

Some universities also noted that neither Australia’s or the UK’s regional funding priorities

were not aligned with each other – with the Australian government primarily focused upon

building research partnerships with Asia, and the UK’s attention been mostly directed towards

Europe – making it much more difficult for Australian researchers to gain government funding

in UK projects. These same universities however, also saw an opportunity to strengthen links

to UK companies and funding organisations with Brexit and the “new political environment” in

the United States.

III Impacts of UK-Australia Research Collaborations

Whilst universities were quick to point out that “not all research undertaken leads to economic

performance for the companies involved”, research collaborations between Australia and the

UK was seen to have significant and varied impacts upon universities, industry and broader

society. A direct way that research collaboration could do this was by exposing researchers to

different methodologies and best practices in other sectors and countries, which in turn would

lead to improved academic and professional practice in both Australia and the UK.

The exposure given to researchers through intersectoral and international collaboration helps

improve the versatility of research – making it useful for a range of sectors outside of academia.

Universities perceived both the Australian and British political climates to be demanding that

“academic research [be] applied widely for the public good”, and believed that such research

collaborations could “greatly enhance the opportunities” of achieving this.

Many universities also believed undertaking international and intersectoral collaboration

would help gain international reputation for the university and increased brand recognition as

a “[key] player in the international research market” that can work and engage with business.

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Universities believed that in turn, this will improve rankings and lead to further collaboration

opportunities.

Universities also noted the positive impact that research collaboration has upon researchers’

personal career development, believing that collaboration expands research networks and

leads to increased publications and citations; giving researchers a more international outlook

on research. Academics reasoned this would give their research a more direct impact to

benefitting the wider community.

Some universities pointed out the well-placed partnership between Australian and British

researchers, with Australian academics, who are “highly valued in the UK for their work ethic,

productivity and innovation” being able to work with the UK’s larger research sector to

overcome the “lower levels of funding and less developed research infrastructure” of the

Australian research system. Consequently, these academics saw Australian-UK collaborations

to result in “better quality, larger-scale research conducted far more efficiently than could be

achieved in Australia alone”, which would not only benefit researchers and their institutions,

but also the wider community through “more rapid application of research findings”. These

perceived research outcomes align with the Australian and British governments’ innovation

strategies[3, 7], leading many of the Australian universities surveyed to believe that research

collaboration between Australian and British institutions to be a powerful conduit for the two

countries to further political and economic relationships.

Chapter Four: Improving the Effectiveness of the Science Innovation Network

A Data Recommendations

I Data Discussion

This report has mapped the key research collaborations between businesses and universities

in both the UK and Australia, based on available data. However, due to time and resource

constraints, there are opportunities to enhance insights from this report.

Many of the submissions made to the report by university staff and academics were not

entirely consistent – with differences in spelling or the decision of whether to list the full name

of an organisation or its acronym, its parent organisation or each company individually -

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creating duplicate listings of collaborations. Whilst efforts were made to validate the

submissions made to the study, this could still have potentially caused discrepancies in the

data.

Some submissions made to the report when mapping intersectoral collaborations were of

collaborations with research institutes and departments within a university, as opposed to a

collaboration with a business, government or not-for-profit organisation. Furthermore, some

universities, in particular small, vocational universities, listed teaching collaborations and

student exchange partners as research collaboration partners. Whilst some of these

submissions were detected and omitted from the report, it is highly possible that some

collaborations that were not immediately obvious of being outside the scope of the project,

may have been included unintentionally.

II What further data should be collected?

This section will make recommendations on data that should be collected in order to make the

current network analysis more robust and reliable in its mapping of the UK-Australian

research collaboration system.

Firstly, research collaboration data on all universities in Australia should be collected. Whilst

all Australian universities were contacted and asked for submissions, only a third of Australian

universities (but all of the Go8) are represented in the data. Additionally, British universities

should also be contacted to validate the collaborations with Australian universities, as well as

identify key Australia businesses working with the UK higher education system. Whilst these

were not possible given the time constraints of the project, this additional data would allow for

a more thorough and accurate representation of the collaboration going on amongst the

university sectors of both the UK and Australia.

Multiple academics from a range of research teams should also be contacted in future studies.

Even though the Deputy Vice-Chancellor or equivalent was contacted at each university, at

times the Deans of research schools had more information about the quantity and details of

research collaborations going on within their faculty. The effects of this asymmetric

information could be dramatically reduced by seeking data input from multiple teams and

academics at various levels of leadership throughout each university.

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This would also assist in collecting more depth of details of projects in future studies, as

opposed to just the title of the research project, as was often the case in this study. In

particular, besides collecting more consistent data, ensuring that all entries contained a project

title, discipline and key researcher, it would also be highly useful to understand how these

research partnerships were formed and established. This could be achieved through follow up

interviews and surveys that would encourage longer, more detailed responses than just the

one-page submissions made by universities. This information would be able to develop greater

case study narratives of collaboration and provide greater contextual information in advising

the British and Australian governments on enhancing international and intersectoral research

collaborations.

Finally, even though this project targeted universities for their international research

collaborations – primarily due to the feasibility of contacting academics given the limited time

constraints of the project - it would be highly useful to understand the benefits, challenges and

impacts of research collaborations from the perspective of non-academic sectors. It would

therefore be highly recommended that future studies consider approaching both Australian

and British businesses, government departments and not-for-profit organisations for their

input into data collection, as well as universities.

B Policy Recommendations

This report makes the following policy recommendations that have been developed through

the evaluations presented in Chapter Three describing the challenges faced by Australian

universities with research collaborations with the UK.

Firstly, SIN should commit to check up annually with universities, particularly those who

submitted data to this study, to understand the growth of their research collaborations and

partnerships. This will also be useful in measuring the effectiveness of future policies or

initiatives of SIN upon the academic sector.

To directly address some of the challenges raised by universities, SIN could facilitate

introductions between British businesses and Australian universities, such as by sending a

delegation of British business leaders to Australian universities, showcasing the benefits and

impacts of collaborating with British businesses and their presence within Australia. This

would be particularly useful for large British multinationals such as Rolls Royce, where some

universities reported not being aware of their presence in Australia.

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SIN could also provide guidance to smaller universities to help them understand the legal

framework of the UK, by distributing research agreement templates to help formalise their

research agreements. This directly addresses one of the primary challenges faced by smaller,

vocational universities in Australia, and is closely aligned with the objectives of SIN to help

British universities and research institutions to “achieve their objectives in Australia”[6].

Whilst admittedly, neither the British or Australian governments have each other as a ‘regional

research priorities’, much could be done to promote the two nations as being high on each

other’s list of research collaboration partners. SIN could play a more active role in promoting

the UK as a global destination for research, enhancing the UK’s global research reputation. Both

the Australian and British Governments, and indeed the Australian and British High

Commissions, could implement campaigns that engage leaders and the greater public in

promoting the strong research collaborations and partnerships the two nations share with

each other.

Chapter Five: Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to identify the key collaborations in the UK-Australian ISR system by

mapping the research collaborations between Australian universities and British businesses,

government and not-for-profit organisations. This paper also aimed to describe the perceived

challenges, benefits and impacts that Australian universities institutions saw to engaging in

research collaborations in the UK.

The network analysis used to examine these collaborations supported existing findings from

Innovation Science Australia that there are significantly more university research

collaborations existing with other universities, than there is between non-academic sectors.

The network mapping showed that research collaborations between universities were heavily

interconnected, compared to collaboration with industry which were often unique for each

university.

This paper concluded that Australian universities see great benefit in collaborating with the UK

due to its global reputation for research, and see international and intersectoral collaboration

as a key part of the knowledge transfer process from academia to the broader economy. Whilst

there are significant challenges faced to intersectoral collaboration with the UK, the British

High Commission and the UK’s Science Innovation Network has significant opportunities to

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provide guidance and support for smaller, vocational universities seeking to engage in research

collaboration.

It is recommended that the British High Commission Canberra make the resources and

connections of the Science and Innovation Network more accessible to Australian universities

– such as providing templates to assist with the establishment of research agreements, and

facilitating introductions between Australian academics and British business leaders. Finally,

the High Commission should play a more active role in promoting the commitment of the UK in

engaging with Australian research, amidst Britain’s changing relationship with Europe. These

recommendations would help the British High Commission Canberra in achieving the aims of

SIN Australia – to “foster research co-operation between the UK and Australia” [6].

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References

1. Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Industry-Research Collaboration. 2017

3 June 2017]; Available from:

https://industry.gov.au/industry/IndustryInitiatives/IndustryResearchCollaboration/

Pages/default.aspx.

2. Adams, J., Collaborations: The rise of research networks. Nature, 2012. 490(7420): p.

335-336.

3. Australian Government. National Innovation and Science Agenda. 2015 [cited 2015

December 27, 2015]; Available from: http://www.innovation.gov.au/.

4. Innovation and Science Australia., Performance Review of the Australian Innovation,

Science and Research System. 2016: Canberra.

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from: https://www.gov.uk/government/world/organisations/uk-science-and-

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6. Setterfield, C. UK Science and Innovation Network in Australia. 2017 [cited 2017 2 June

2017]; Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/world/organisations/uk-

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7. Department of Business Innovation and Science., Our Plan for Growth: Science and

Innovation, HM Treasury, Editor. 2014.

Appendices

Appendix 1The following institutions submitted data for this study; The Australian Research Council,

Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, Curtin University, Deakin University,

Edith Cowan University, Flinders University, Griffith University, La Trobe University,

Macquarie University, Murdoch University, Swinburne University, University of Melbourne,

University of Technology Sydney, University of Western Australia.

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