A Strategy to Accelerate Innovation in NSW: Outline for Policy Development

Abstract

The NSW Government should place innovation at the centre of its economic strategy because innovation—the development of improved products, services, and processes, the creation of new markets, and the use of new products—is critical to productivity advance. Productivity advance is, in turn, the essential underpinning of prosperity in any economy. Only by increasing economic output per hour worked can NSW ensure long-term sustainable economic development. Innovation increases productivity both by improving efficiency (reducing cost) and raising sales (increasing customer willingness to pay). The latter is particularly important. The ability of NSW companies to develop new products and services to satisfy sophisticated customer demand, both at home and in export markets, will become the key to continuing NSW’s strong economic development of recent decades.