In August 2016, the Queensland Government (through its Advance Queensland agenda) released its Advancing Regional Innovation Program (formerly known as the Regional Innovation Hubs Program). Essentially, the initiative is designed to support innovation and entrepreneurship in regional Queensland, and to turn Queensland regions into hubs for innovation and enterprise. Partners Reece Walker and Ren Niemann take a closer look.

At its core, innovation is the generation of realisable value from ideas. While regional areas of Queensland are hot for new ideas, start-ups and new enterprises, some local councils are wrestling with this concept and the successful application of broader state government initiatives.

The Advancing Regional Innovation Program identifies the following five key features for success of effective regional innovation systems:

  1. places and spaces – both physical and virtual spaces create an important platform for connections to occur and learning and communities to develop;
  2. connectivity – connections will occur in structured and unstructured ways, but as innovation ecosystems mature, connections become more seamless;
  3. collaboration – the evolution of real, collaborative structures where people work across disciplines, sectors and institutions to create new opportunities;
  4. leadership – leaders play both the role of host and facilitator of strategic conversations, alliances and activities; and
  5. communities of practice – learning communities are focused on strategic innovation where contributors share best-practice, leverage core competencies and drive solution development and implementation.

Local councils can influence a community to create an environment that is welcoming and supportive of new start-ups and business enterprises. For this reason, they can facilitate the leadership and implementation of these recommendations by a broader stakeholder group.

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CO-INVESTMENT

A successful innovative ecosystem requires a holistic approach from stakeholders, including engagement and collaboration between businesses, entrepreneurs, regional universities and research institutions, governments, support services, regional development authorities, industry bodies and major corporates.

Councils should take advantage of collaborative arrangements with stakeholders to facilitate business development and innovation, and as a means of managing direct investment.

PARTNERING WITH PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

While regional Queensland is gradually increasing its presence of innovation hubs, more work can be done in this space. Innovation hubs include co-working spaces (a hub offering a low-cost community space for start-ups and emerging businesses to work), incubators (relatively unstructured programs for very early stage businesses, usually based on a common theme) and accelerator programs (structured programs that often have an application process which are geared toward speeding up the growth and success of start-up and early stage business during a set timeframe).

Innovation hub funding models include private, university, government and social enterprise (or a combination of these models), enabling local councils to exploit partnership and joint funding opportunities.