This article, like many by Mark should come with a warning "Salesman at Work"

I work in the high tech industry and almost exclusively now with US partners - we tried to invest in Australia but met the same cultural behavior that continues to exist and Mark alludes to it.

The R&D organizations, universities, government agencies have little regard for their investors, they demand that it is a one way street and it pretty well is that way. They get most of their money from government coffers and don't care to see it from an investors POV.

There are completely unrealistic, institutionalized, expectations of investors, that somehow they should pay royalties up front based on "market research" by the R&D organizations of the worldwide returns.

Mark writes "The project selection criteria involves examination of the business model and capacity of the technology to transform an industry", there it is, the expectation that every bit of R&D is a world beater. So the R&D organizations want huge returns, again for no risk, and cannot understand why investors are not queuing up.

So eventually they settle, after all the serious investors have left disgusted, with someone who makes promises but has not the capacity to take a product to market. Of course the investors are blamed.

When the Australian R&D industry learns to let go and work quickly with smaller investors, rather than always waiting for the "Prince Charming" investor who will take their product to the World, then we will start to see changes.

A lot of R&D can be productised for moderate but honest returns, the industry is driven by trying maximize their returns and of course often ends up with nothing. In the US, for instance, they don't need CRCs to help innovators - in Australia we have a culture of greed.

Currently every single innovation is milked for everything possible, until it has no suitors, no investment and has missed the market opportunity because they just play too hard. There are easier places to invest and get a return on technology - we found them, so can you.

Having been interested in starting my own small manufacturing concern in NSW I soon found that the red tape and expense of start up was orders of magnitude higher than virtually anywhere else in the world.

If starting a business overseas is a fraction of the cost, then it is not surprising that innovators go there.

Shadow Minister, we bought some technology from a US organisation who had spent 3 years in development, they wanted to move on, thought the idea was nice but not a world beater - so were happy to sell it for a reasonable return and move on.

10 years later we still sell and continue to develop that product (one of many we now have I might add).

One government customer in the US has a whole organisation to help small companies, and they gave us very good advice - yes we manufacture there for various congressional Act reasons - but the profits all come back to Australia where we PAY TAX!

I've tried to work with Australian organisation, several of them and just cannot believe their arrogant attitudes to business.

It is no surprise to me that innovation stays on the shelf here, the government is a big part of the problem.

let me invest my tax dollars in R&D, like the US IRAD Schemes (no room to explain) without the ridiculous overheads, and business would benefit. Instead all R&D is cloistered in universities and OGOs who have little idea about business.

Obviously they don't if our CRCs continue to moan and groan about innovations dying on the shelf or going overseas.

Let me decide where to invest in R&D instead of the government redirecting my taxes to these efficient old boys clubs.

Perhaps many of our local inventors are a little biased,
overestimating how clever their inventions really are,
in the global scheme of things.

I can think of a whole list of " Australian great ideas" that were
floated on the ASX, backed by serious money, where investors
lost their shirts, whilst managers cashed in all along the way.

Eventually investors get pissed off and simply don't bother anymore,
for they have heard it all before.