Ai Group welcomed the opportunity to provide a brief submission on this consultation paper to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

General Comment:

• Incentivising and rewarding universities for industry collaboration is important, but all frameworks should consider that some universities may be better resourced, or better placed (geographically, financially etc.) than others to capture industry partners, and the system should be carefully considered to avoid creating or magnifying disadvantage.
• Government can incentivise/support better industry-university collaboration through a focus on mutual benefit between businesses and universities. This involves consideration of cultural issues, such as overvalue of IP by universities and the difference in pace between a faster moving private sector and a traditionally slower moving research process.
• Some research is not necessarily valuable from a commercial standpoint but is immensely valuable to the well-being of the Australian public. Although this point is less applicable to the RBG discussion, all reform should be holistic.