Riding on the back of science: innovation and technological change in the Australian wool industry

Abstract

The sudden downturn of the wool market in the late 1980s was sufficiently severe to force the industry through another period of significant economic hardship and institutional change. The extent of the structural adjustment is still difficult to determine but it has already brought about major changes in the innovation system supporting the Australian wool industry. Wool research expenditures and activities were drastically curtailed, and the directions and focus of the research and development program have changed significantly. As a consequence, it appeared to the writer (in 1989) that this could be an appropriate juncture at which to reflect on the past and examine the innovation system processes, linkages, structures, events, and achievements stretching back over one hundred years on which the industry had prospered/survived. In particular the period from the 1950s was of interest because on quick investigation, it was one of extensive research investment as well as innovative outcomes. The technological achievements since the 1950s challenge perceptions that wool growing was not a major science based industry, or that investment in Australian research or the more general sentiment that Australian inventiveness was captured by overseas interests and was ultimately of little benefit to Australia. In this respect, examining the background, the processes for achieving outcomes, and the results of the institutional wool R&D effort over an extended timeframe, has not been attempted before in the case of the wool industry. The thesis looks at the operation of the innovation system, the outcomes produced, and the difficulties experienced along the way. The rationale for doing this was simply a belief that understanding better what happened in the past has some bearing on what is possible in the future. Understanding the relationships and structures in the case of the wool industry has relevance for future policy both in the wool industry as well as other industries. To this end the thesis recounts the various changes to the statutory organisation created by the Commonwealth government to administer research funds, and comments on the strengths and weaknesses of advancing technological change when it is largely organised, funded and encouraged through government funding arrangements and institutional structures.