INNOVATION-ACTIVE BUSINESSES AND COLLABORATION

Measuring collaboration provides insight into the linkages between businesses, particularly innovation-active businesses and other organisations. Linkages are important to understanding the business dynamic in initiating pooled undertakings of innovation. Collaboration is defined as the arrangement where businesses work together for mutual benefit, including some sharing of technical and commercial risk. Each participant in the collaboration did not need to benefit commercially. The Business Characteristics Survey collected, from all businesses, the type of collaborative arrangement businesses were involved in; and for innovation-active businesses, the type of organisation they had collaborated with and the location of that organisation.


TYPE OF COLLABORATIVE ARRANGEMENT

All businesses were asked what type of collaborative arrangements they had been involved in during the year ended 30 June 2007. Businesses were not asked to confine their responses to collaborative arrangements specifically for the purpose of innovation. This section restricts the results for this item to innovation-active businesses only. Broader data for this item will be released as part of Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2006-07 (cat. no. 8167.0). Businesses could report more than one type of arrangement and the number of arrangements was not asked.

INNOVATION-ACTIVE BUSINESSES: Type of collaborative arrangement(a)(b), by employment size - 2006-07
	0-4 persons	5-19 persons	20-199 persons	200 or more persons	Total
	%	%	%	%	%
Joint research and development	4.9	2.9	3.9	11.6	4.1
Joint buying	3.0	4.5	5.5	7.1	3.8
Joint manufacturing	2.8	0.6	1.3	5.9	1.9
Integrated supply chain	3.2	3.2	2.6	8.7	3.2
Joint marketing or distribution	8.8	8.3	7.8	12.8	8.5
Other collaborative arrangements	4.8	1.5	5.6	7.0	3.7
Any collaborative arrangements	16.1	14.1	19.2	29.2	15.9
No collaborative arrangements	83.9	85.9	80.8	70.8	84.1
(a) Proportions are of innovation-active businesses in each employment size category.
(b) Businesses could identify more than one type of collaboration and they were not required to indicate if the type of collaboration was for innovation or general business purposes.

Across industry, the proportion of innovation-active businesses involved in some form of collaborative arrangement for any purpose ranged from 9% for Other Services to 26% for Professional, Scientific and Technical Services. Joint research and development as a type of collaborative arrangement was most prevalent in innovation-active businesses in the Mining (10%) and Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services, Information Media and Telecommunications and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (all at 9%) industries.


COLLABORATION PARTNERS

Businesses that reported undertaking innovative activity were then asked to indicate the type and location of organisations they had collaborated with for the purpose of developing, introducing or implementing new or significantly improved goods, services, processes or methods. Innovation-active businesses could select more than one type and location of organisation.

Around 17% of innovation-active businesses reported that they had collaborated for the purposes of innovation. Businesses with 0-4 persons employed reported a slightly higher proportion of involvement in a collaborative arrangement for innovation purposes (17%) than those with 5-19 persons employed (16%).

INNOVATION-ACTIVE BUSINESSES: Collaboration for innovation(a)(b), by location of organisation, by type of organisation collaborated with - 2006-07
		Within Australia	From overseas	Any location
		%	%	%
Other parts of related company		33.2	5.6	35.5
Clients, customers or buyers		42.0	6.8	42.6
Suppliers of equipment, materials, components or software		30.7	9.2	36.0
Competitors and other businesses from same industry		26.3	2.2	27.2
Consultants		17.4	1.4	17.8
Universities or other higher education institutions		1.6	0.3	1.9
Other research institutions:
	Private non-profit	4.3	0.2	4.5
	Government/public	7.2	np	7.2
Government agencies (excluding government research institutions)		9.6	0.2	9.6
np not available for publication but included in totals where applicable, unless otherwise indicated
(a) Proportions are of innovation-active businesses that reported collaboration for innovative purposes.
(b) Businesses could identify more than one location or type of organisation.

Innovative-active businesses were more likely to collaborate for the purposes of innovation with organisations located within Australia than overseas. For businesses collaborating within Australia, the most common collaboration partner was Clients, customers or buyers (42%). For organisations which collaborated overseas, Suppliers of equipment, materials, components or software (9%) were the most commonly reported collaboration partners.

The most common type of organisation (located in Australia) that businesses with 0-4 persons employed collaborated with for innovation purposes were Clients, customers or buyers (42%), whereas for businesses with 200 or more persons employed, it was Consultants (43%). Collaboration with Universities or other higher education institutions located in Australia was far more likely to be reported by businesses with 200 or more persons employed (9%) than other employment size groups.

Over two-thirds (67%) of innovation-active businesses in the Transport, Postal and Warehousing industry reported collaborating with Competitors and other businesses from the same industry (located within Australia) for the purposes of innovation. Collaboration, for innovation purposes, with Universities or other higher education institutions (located within Australia) was most commonly reported by businesses in the Mining industry (18%) and this was considerably higher than the next highest figure of 8% reported by innovation-active businesses in the Other Services industry.

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