Australia’s Working Group of the Prime Minister’s Engineering and Innovation Council (PMEIC) has recently published a report about the role of creativity in the innovation economy. The report starts with the observation that “what the arts, social sciences and humanities call creativity, science and technology calls invention or discovery.” The Working Group argues that the time has come not just to focus on high-tech and ‘hard’ science, but also to formulate policies to strengthen the creative economy.

The main recommendations made in the report are:

1. To realize the competitive potential of the Australian nation by adopting new innovation
policies that recognize the central role of creativity and the creative industries within a rapidly
changing environment.

2. Realize Australia’s full creative and innovation potential by undertaking measures to promote broader cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral teaching and research.

3. Introduce a Creative Innovation Fund to promote new competitive programs and support initiatives for commercial innovation and collaboration between HASS and SET sectors.

The web-version of the report can be downloaded here.