The Entrepreneurs Programme: a policy design nightmare?

In no world is policy design a straightforward process. And with a policy area like innovation, where benefits can be largely subjective, what are some of the key challenges policy designers face?

In December of 2015, The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science announced that as part of an $11million National Innovation and Science Agenda, the development of the Entrepreneurs Programme would be undertaken — a program designed to give Australian businesses access to the resources and capabilities they need to improve business practices, increase time to market on new products and support the innovation ecosystem in Australia (Chanthadavong, 2019).

With 4 main focus areas, “The objective of the Programme is to drive business growth and competitiveness by supporting business improvement and innovation connections in targeted Growth Sectors and the commercialisation of novel products, processes and services.” (Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, 2019) One of few policies for Australia in the innovation space, the policy had to address the the system or market failures that the government perceived — a typical approach to innovation policy design (Smith 2000; Dodgson et al. 2011). Innovation policy can’t be separated from the policy makers mental models, making the design of innovation policy in danger of being highly subjective, and dependent on the ideologies of the political parties designing the policy, complicating the decision making process. (Dalitz and Toner, 2016: Merrill and Merrill, 1984)

This paper approaches the Entrepreneurs Programme as a policy decision, identifying some of the challenges of policy design, for a policy space that isn’t often, and hasn’t often in the past, been brought to the fore.

Defining innovation — policy design challenge #1

Broadly, policy could be defined as interventions to confront a particular problem. But in order to design an intervention, one must be able to define the problem — the first hurdle for innovation policy (Peters, 2018). Richard Coyne argues that the exception, not the norm, is being able to design policy for awkward or ambiguous problems, and if we align this with the thoughts of Dalitz and Toner, that innovation policy is always viewed through the lens of individual mental models, we certainly find the nexus of a complex issue (Coyne, 2005).

With the concept of a National Innovation System (NIS) being globally accepted since the term was coined in the early 90’s, it would be easy to assume that there is a global benchmark definition of innovation to commence the policy design cycle with, however there is no clearly articulated definition of what constitutes a NIS, nor what system it creates (Webster, 2009). So with no problem to confront, where does the policy design process begin?

In a letter to the Hon Kim Carr, delivering the report of a commission into the Australian National Innovation System, Terry Cutler stated “Innovation is not the problem; it is the answer” (Cutler, 2008) — speaking to the earlier ideas of Smith and Dodgson, that typically to approach innovation policy, there has to be a perceived market failure, and to the ideas of Peters, that there has to be a problem to design policy.

Under this preface, that the first stage of the policy cycle, defining the problem, becomes inherently ambiguous, we find a challenge in the design of innovation policy. Under conditions of ambiguity, any policy design theory based on rational behaviour, are rendered near useless, and what can happen is a garbage can model of choice, where “Choice is conceptualised as a garbage can into which participants, who drift in and out of the problem, dump largely unrelated problems and solutions. No one person controls the process” (Sabatier and Weible, 2014). Decisions in the garbage can are then made through the distillation and identification of what was dumped in there during the process, leading to temporal solutions (Sabatier and Weible, 2014).

The tension? That without clear universal standards or definition of innovation — the design of this policy begins on a highly subjective footing.

Implementation options — policy design challenge #2

Since the announcement of the agenda in 2015, the development of the program has recently led to the government putting out with a request for tender (RFT) for partners to assist with the delivery of the core focus areas of the program, committing $182million to be spread across 10 partners (Sadler, 2019).

With Australian public management characteristics and behaviours aligning fairly well with those of New Public Management (NPM), reforms felt from the 80’s on, this contracting or partnership model is fairly characteristic of our current ideology. However, arriving at this mechanism of implementation would have been a challenge of policy design, while attempting to define which part of a National Innovation System, or championing progression and change through policy, is the responsibility of government.

In any circumstance there are pros and cons to this outsourcing and contracting mechanism to the provision of government services. Whilst the RFT process drives up competition in a pricing sense, and in theory the quality of offerings for government to consider, these partnerships can also demand more management from the responsible agencies, ensuring that the work that was promised is the work that’s delivered (Lane, 2000). But apart from the practicalities, the long term future of the policy and resulting initiatives also has to be taken into consideration when deciding on implementation. Does this method of implementation live beyond the lifespans of different governments?

In 1984, long before the idea of an innovative and agile nation was on the lips of our leadership (in so many words), Lambright, Crow and Shangraw reflected on National Projects in Civilian Technology in the United States, and this tension of different political ideologies taking different levels of responsibility for supporting innovation through novel applications of technologies, was already evident.

“What one presidential administration may sanction, another may deny as “outside” the government’s appropriate role.” (Lambright Crow and Shangraw, 84)

While in Australia, Liberal government ideology may, and has proven to, show an affinity to systemic economic stimulation and growth as an agenda and approach to governance, as the majority government holder over the last 15–20 years, not a lot can be said for the opposition’s approach to innovation — posing a risk for the long term plan of Australian innovation. This adds yet another element of challenge to the policy design process, as policies and their execution that address innovation, need to both align with party ideology, but also be appetising for the opposition to continue with implementation, so that the policy has a chance at outlasting the politics.

In her essay, “How We Forgot How To Govern”, Laura Tingle emphasises that in recent political history in Australia, we have developed a “political and policy amnesia”, forgetting the lessons and thoughts of the government’s gone before, and enticing voters with things shiny and new, often leaving both policies and voters left wanting more (Tingle, 2015).

For the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, deciding whether or not to outsource and contract implementation of the programme, or create/find the subject matter expertise in house, may have raised bigger conversations not just about the practicalities of the programme, but also about how the implementation supports our ideology towards innovation and the growth of a National Innovation System.

In summary

The design phase of any policy comes with a plethora of challenges, with the Entrepreneurs Programme as part of Australia’s innovation policy no exception. And as Coyne so rightly argued, that designing policy around an ambiguous problem, or a changing and evolving set of problems is the norm, rather than the exception, this first stage of the policy process is always going to be a hard one to conquer. But for innovation policy in Australia more broadly — this poses an additional layer of challenge as the area of innovation has no broadly accepted definition or benchmark and is largely subjective to the ideologies of driving government.

The programme, despite its challenges, begins to more concretely embed innovation policy into the ecosystem of business in Australia. Outsourcing the implementation enables organisations already active in stimulating innovation activities to further their reach and collaborate, as well as addressing accessibility concerns.

Innovation policy will continue to face the challenges of an ambiguous space and a small pool of relevant talent in Australia, however policies such as this set the foundation for more work to continue in stimulating new ways of working for Australian businesses and a great Australian presence in the technology and startup stages.

Reference list:

Australian Government, Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Entrepreneurs’ Programme — Programme Guidelines Version 11. (2019). [PDF] Available at: https://www.business.gov.au/assistance/entrepreneurs-programme#innovation-connections [Accessed 3 Oct. 2019].

Chanthadavong, A. (2019). Australian government stumps up AU$182m for help with its Entrepreneurs’ Programme. [Blog] ZDNet. Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-government-stumps-up-au182m-for-help-with-its-entrepreneurs-programme/ [Accessed 3 Oct. 2019].

Coyne, R. (2005) Wicked Problems Revisited, Design Studies 26, 5–17.

Cutler, T. (2008). VenturousAustralia. North Melbourne, Vic.: Cutler & Company.

Dalitz, R. & Toner, P. (2016) Systems failure, market failure, or something else? The case of skills development in Australian innovation policy, Innovation and Development, 6:1, 51–66, DOI: 10.1080/2157930X.2015.1084116

Dodgson, M., A. Hughes, J. Foster, and S. Metcalfe. 2011. “Systems Thinking, Market Failure, and the Development of Innovation Policy: The Case of Australia.” Research Policy 40: 1145–1156.

Lambright, W., Crow, M. and Shangraw, R. (1984). National Projects in Civilian Technology. In: M. Barzley, ed., Policy Studies Review, 3rd ed. [online] Available at: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=32708475-ab25-4938-8608-2b6afec0f6f0%40sessionmgr4008 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2019].

Lane, J. (2000). New public management. London: Routledge.

Merrill, S & Merrill, S (1984) DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING INNOVATION POLICY. POLICY STUDIES REVIEW. 3 (3), 445–452. [online]. Available from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/60781255/.

Peters, B. (2018). Policy problems and policy design. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Sabatier, P. and Weible, C. (2014). Theories of the Policy Process. New York: Westview Press.

Sadler, D. (2019). Entrepreneur Plan gets a facelift. [Blog] InnovationAus. Available at: https://www.innovationaus.com/2019/10/Entrepreneur-plan-gets-a-facelift [Accessed 3 Oct. 2019].

Smith, K. 2000. “Innovation as a Systemic Phenomenon: Rethinking the Role of Policy.” Enterprise and Innovation Management Studies 1: 73–102.

Tingle, L. (2015). Political Amnesia — How We Forgot How To Govern. 60th ed. Collingwood, Victoria: Quarterly Essay.