CREATING AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE INNOVATORS

Australia’s economy is powered by innovation – but our formal education system is not yet fully geared to deliver the innovators we need.

The nation’s innovators and entrepreneurs often achieve success in spite of their education, rather than because of it, says Dr Ruth Bridgstock of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at Queensland University of Technology.

Dr Bridgstock is carrying out leading-edge research into the capabilities Australia’s future graduates will require to meet the needs of a 21st century innovation economy, based on detailed study of successful Aussie innovators.

“The creative industries are a growing part of the Australian economy, as CCI’s work has demonstrated. They have been expanding at twice the rate of the rest of the economy,” she says.

“Worldwide, every advanced country is moving to an innovation economy – and we need to ensure that Australia produces enough innovators to keep ahead. At the moment, in my view, we are not educating sufficiently with this end in mind.”

Dr Bridgstock says that her in-depth studies of successful Australian innovators have identified seven main qualities that need to be developed – and which are not sufficiently addressed by traditional university courses.

“These include the ability to build strong and diverse social networks, the ability to cross disciplines with ease, be ‘digitally savvy’, have a strong enterprise orientation and the skill to channel one’s passion into what one does and use it to take advantage of whatever comes along.”

For innovators, social networks are not about ‘dinner party skills’, but rather about the ability to build a strong and diverse team of people with complementary skills who can turn a great idea into reality.

“Besides in-depth knowledge, innovators also need the ability to traverse a wide range of different disciplines and to communicate with experts in many different areas that can make their ideas happen.
“Innovators often need to be ‘digitally savvy’, meaning they can take advantage of the latest technology without being dominated or obsessed by it.

“Also, an innovator may not necessarily be a business entrepreneur, but entrepreneurship is an essential skill set – so they need the ability to forge alliances with those who can help turn their idea into commercial success,” Dr Bridgstock adds.
“Innovators also need passion. You can’t teach passion at university, though you can foster it with the right environment by allowing students a safe space to experiment, make mistakes and try to discover the professional roles that will ignite their passion.”

More subtly, she adds, the good innovator is able to create “planned happenstance” by having the peripheral vision to spot fresh opportunities laterally, even while completely focussed on their project – another skill it is difficult to teach in a standard university course.

Today’s university courses still tend to have a strong discipline focus and to adopt a reductionist approach. “Our educational history is all about becoming credentialed and very knowledgeable in a particular area. We need that – but we also need courses that allow creativity and an innovative spirit to flourish. Innovation is about following and capturing new possibilities, not just obeying the rules.”

Dr Bridgstock says this quality can be instilled in today’s tertiary training by including opportunities for students to experiment and develop their future professional identity, to explore different possibilities without fear of being failed, and to discover the opportunities that fire their imagination.

To do this they need a “safe space” - and higher education can provide it, free from the stresses, demands and intense monetary focus of the commercial world.

She added that while mining and natural resources are an important part of the Australian economy, growth in the future when today’s students are leaders was likely to flow from investing in our intellectual and creative capital – and that we will need innovators in natural resources as much as elsewhere in business, society and government

The ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) is helping to build a creative Australia through cutting edge research spanning the creative industries, media and communications, arts, cultural studies, law, information technology, education and business.

More information:
Dr Ruth Bridgstock, CCI and QUT, 07 3138 8587 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              07 3138 8587      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Professor Stuart Cunningham, Director CCI, ph 0407 195 304, s.cunningham@qut.edu.au
Rebekah McClure, Manager CCI, ph +61 7 3138 3889
Julian Cribb, CCI media, 0418 639 245

http://www.cci.edu.au