Innovative Australia

Australian Government policies aim to encourage innovation across the economy and to promote research and development and international cooperation. Australia's workforce is highly skilled, multilingual, and has a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

Our research institutions are among the world's best and offer unsurpassed opportunities for industry collaboration. Australian scientists collaborate internationally in a range of fields from coral reef management to medicine. In 2012, Australia won the right to co-host, with South Africa, the world's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array, which will give astronomers new insights into our universe. Australia's research and development expenditure has grown at almost twice the OECD average: 9.9 per cent between 2000 and 2008.

The Australian Government has a 10-year plan for innovation in Australia. It aims to increase the number of Australians undertaking higher degrees by research and the level of innovation among Australian businesses, and to facilitate collaboration between industry and Australian researchers, and their international colleagues.

Quick links

• www.csiro.au
• www.crc.gov.au
• www.innovation.gov.au

Our performing arts groups, musicians, dance troupes and theatre performers display the energy and diversity of Australia's arts and many are involved in international exchanges. Opera Australia and the Australian Ballet regularly undertake world tours. Smaller companies such as dance troupe Chunky Moves have toured the Middle East and the Bangarra Dance Theatre, Circus Oz and others are recognised internationally for the quality of their productions.

Australian music is another big export and covers an extraordinary range from classical, to contemporary and children's entertainment. The Australian Chamber Orchestra regularly tours Europe and Japan. Guitarist Slava Grigoryan is one of a number of prominent classical musicians and composers who regularly tour and work overseas. An eclectic group of Australian contemporary artists have achieved international success, including AC/DC, Gotye, Nick Cave, INXS, Kylie Minogue, Midnight Oil, Savage Garden, Keith Urban, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and the Warrumpi Band. Bananas in Pyjamas, a successful Australian children's television show, captivates approximately 100 million viewers from about 70 countries around the world. The Wiggles children's music group is well known internationally.

Fashion Week in Sydney and Melbourne showcases to the world the best of Australian designers and fashion brands: Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Lisa Ho, Carla Zampatti, Sass & Bide, Alex Perry and Wayne Cooper.

Australian arts expertise is an important segment of Australia's export economy, with Australians regularly contributing creative ideas and technologies to world festival events.

Australian arts expertise is an important segment of Australia's export economy, with Australians regularly contributing creative ideas and technologies to world festival events. The Australian film industry brings together production expertise, locations, technical know-how and actors who have performed in local theatre as well as film. Screen Australia has supported this industry resulting in film successes like Bran Nue Dae, Crocodile Dundee, Happy Feet, Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Red Dog, Samson and Delilah, Shine, Strictly Ballroom, Wolf Creek and The Sapphires. Internationally acclaimed Australian actors from these and other films include Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Abby Cornish, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Judy Davis, Mel Gibson, Paul Hogan, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Guy Pearce and Naomi Watts.

Community engagement with the arts forms an important part of Australia's fabric and economy. Australian states and territories are working with the Australian Government on an Arts and Disability Strategy to ensure that all Australians have access to the arts and can participate in this sector, including as practitioners. Arts education is also linked to academic achievement and aids school retention. Australia's new national education curriculum will include the creative arts.

Technology and innovation are growing new audiences for the arts, and advances in broadband technology are both building capacity in regional Australia and helping bring performance and ideas to international audiences.

Excellence in education

In Australia, education starts in the years before formal schooling, with many child care services and preschools receiving government funding.

Australia's education system

Australian students participate in school education from the age of five or six to around 18, with many going on to tertiary education. The public and private education sectors are working together to close the gap on Indigenous disadvantage and improve outcomes in Indigenous education, with programs such as 'Learn, Earn, Legend!' that encourage and support young Indigenous Australians to stay at school.

Australia has a vocational education and training system that provides students with the skills required in a modern labour market, and delivers competency-based training that is practical and careeroriented. The Australian higher education system comprises both public and private universities, Australian branches of overseas universities and other higher education providers. Some universities have campuses in other countries.

School of the Air

Australia is a huge continent and is home to some of the most geographically isolated and remote communities in the world. School of the Air is one of the means by which children in remote communities and on isolated properties can access schools. The School of the Air uses various communication technologies to have daily contact among students, home tutors (often parents) and teachers.

Study in Australia

Australia is a sought-after destination for international students: more than 425,000 international students chose to study in Australia in 2011. International students are attracted to Australia by its high standard of teaching, its internationally accepted qualifications, and its welcoming and diverse society. Seven Australian universities were named among the world's top 200 higher education institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011. Australia's two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney, have been ranked among the top 10 best student cities in the world according to the QS world university rankings. Australia has more than a thousand universities, training colleges, English language institutes and schools, offering international students some 25,000 courses. The quality of Australia's vocational education and training sector is recognised around the world.

English language training

Australia's English language schools offer a variety of services. They range from short courses for students visiting Australia as part of a holiday, to formal courses in preparation for accredited levels of English, recognised by education and immigration authorities around the world. In 2011, students from nearly 150 countries came to Australia to study English.

Scholarships

Education has the power to transform lives. The Australian Government's Australia Awards are a prestigious scholarship program aimed at promoting knowledge and creating education links and enduring ties between our country, our regional neighbours and the world community. Applicants from around the world compete for the awards, and those who are successful undertake study, research and professional development in Australia's premier universities and research institutes. Awards are also available for Australians to enjoy similar opportunities overseas.

Universal health care

The Australian health system is world class in both effectiveness and efficiency: Australia consistently ranks in the best performing group of countries for healthy life expectancy and health expenditure per person (World Health Organization, 2010). Medicare is Australia's universal public health system, providing free public hospital care and subsidies for primary care. Medicare ensures that all Australians have access to a broad range of quality health services. The Australian Government provides significant financing for the health system, working closely with state and territory governments with responsibility for on-the-ground delivery of hospital services. A private health sector complements the public system.

The Australian population has a generally good health status, with an average life expectancy at birth of 81.8 years (79.5 for men and 84 for women), one of the highest in the world. There are some groups with poor health status, and closing the gap on life expectancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is a national priority. Generally the pattern of disease in Australia is similar to that of other developed countries.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service

Since 1928, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has been vital to Australia's health care system, flying sick people from rural and remote areas to where they can obtain treatment, and providing them with primary health care. Today the RFDS has a fleet of more than 50 aircraft and operates from 21 bases across Australia. The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides health care across Australia through more than 275,000 patient contacts a year – that's one person every two minutes!

Successive governments have committed to supporting sport in Australia from grassroots to elite; increasing participation in physical and recreational activities to promote physical and mental health; staging world-class major sporting events; and using sport as a vehicle to address disadvantage and social inclusion challenges.

Almost every sport is played somewhere in Australia, with men and women well represented in sporting activities throughout the nation. Football (soccer) and netball are the biggest team sports in Australia. Three other football codes are also popular throughout the country: rugby league, rugby union and Australia's own unique brand of Australian Rules Football. Cricket, tennis, golf, swimming, field hockey and cycling, among others, are also popular.

The Australian Sports Commission promotes and funds grassroots participation in sport as well as investing in high-performance sport, including through scholarships for athletes in facilities such as the Australian Institute of Sport, based in Canberra.

Sport for international development

Australia is regarded as a world leader in using sport to assist developing countries to achieve positive societal outcomes. The Australian Sports Outreach Program, principally funded by AusAID and managed by the Australian Sports Commission, manages grassroots sports development programs in the Pacific, southern Africa, Caribbean regions and in India.

Sporting events

Australia has a reputation for staging successful major sporting events. It has hosted the summer Olympics twice (Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000) and the Commonwealth Games four times (Sydney 1938, Perth 1962, Brisbane 1982 and Melbourne 2006). Queensland's Gold Coast will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Australia will also host the 2015 Cricket World Cup, and the 2015 Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup. Other international events are staged annually around Australia such as the gruelling Sydney to Hobart yacht race, the Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne, the internationally accredited Tour Down Under cycling event in South Australia, and a round of the Moto GP on Phillip Island in Victoria. The world tennis circuit is kicked off each year by the Australian Open in Melbourne.