Dr Rachel Parker

Australia is under-performing in the new and highly profitable knowledge economy, according to an award-winning UQ public policy researcher.

Dr Rachel Parker, from the School of Political Science and International Studies, has warned that Australia’s economic competitiveness, industrial transformation and high-quality employment generation could be hampered by the failure of government to create the structures for learning, innovation and industrial change.

The knowledge economy is a term used to group high technology industries such as information technology, telecommunications and biotechnology.

Dr Parker’s findings are based on research into the knowledge economies of six leading OECD countries: Australia, Sweden, Ireland, France, the US and Taiwan. She has been awarded a $45,000 2005 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award.

Dr Parker said part of the problem was that Australia did not have a history of success in medium/high technology industries.

“As a consequence, we don’t have the accumulated competence that can be used in these new industry sectors or an industrial training ground for our graduates to develop that competence,” she said.

“Although government in Australia is good at funding research, it is not very good at coordinating business activity.”

Dr Parker’s research is also funded by an $88,000 Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.

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