Profiling Rockhampton’s regional business cohort : opportunities for innovation clusters

Regional business and industry are critical players in regional innovation systems, yet there is currently no reliable way to assess the actual makeup of these entities in regional Australia. This project set out to provide a comprehensive and current business audit for the Rockhampton Region, and then to use that information to identify the potential for innovation relationships between SMEs, the regional university, and various other regional service providers. In particular, the project was focussed on discovering ways to more strategically engage with local industry to facilitate cluster formation, develop R&D collaborations, access business expertise, and promote the region’s strengths and advantages. However, it quickly became evident that there is an exceptionally low level of detail to describe businesses and/or business activity at the regional/local level. Publicly available information is limited to that from central registers (such as the Australian Taxation Office and Australian Security and Investment Commission); purchased datasets have patchy, poor coverage; and privacy constraints make it very difficult to understand what linkages have already been made with clients of federal and state government service providers. This situation encourages over-servicing of identified, participant companies; potentially at the expense of lost opportunities with others. This paper will describe some of the methodologies used to collate and analyse information about regional business. It will also highlight the challenges and opportunities that regions face in generating an evidence-base about their local business profile; and what the implications of these are in terms of constructing regional advantage, based on partnering with SMEs for innovation.