Canberra Research Grants That Help Small Businesses Innovate

Canberra has world-class talent, but talent alone doesn’t guarantee small business innovation. We sit down with Uwe Dulleck, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of Canberra, to get honest about why a highly educated city can still be only “average” on research-driven innovation and productivity and what we can do about it.

We walk through a practical answer: a new University of Canberra and Canberra Business Chamber research partnership that matches business funding up to $5,000 to help SMEs test ideas with real evidence. We talk about the kinds of questions that fit, building a business plan for a new product or service, understanding customer trust and adoption, pressure-testing a “gadget” that isn’t quite working yet, and even measuring the real impact of new legislation on employers and workers. If you’ve ever felt stuck between a hunch and a decision, this is about turning uncertainty into learning.

We also zoom out to the bigger innovation ecosystem. Why do we so often look to government first, and what changes when businesses, academics, and community partners build solutions together? Uva shares what she’s seen in Germany and in parts of Asia where university-industry collaboration is normal, entrepreneurial spirit is stronger, and respect for research translates into faster change. We end with the realities: insights can land in weeks or months, paperwork support matters, and a small pilot can open doors to larger funding and bigger collaborations.

If you’re a Canberra business owner with a question worth answering, listen, share this with someone who needs it, and subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next. If you found it useful, please leave a review and tell us: what would you research first?

Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford from the Canberra Business Chamber, and today I'm uh pleased to be joined again by Uva Dullock, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, Government and Law from the University of Canberra. Uva, uh, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Thanks, Greg, for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Uh now today um we are talking about small business innovation. Uh, we're talking about uh research initiatives for small businesses. Um, and recently um the university and the chamber have partnered up to offer some research grants to small businesses who want to do some research into a problem or or or or something impacting their business. Um, really exciting opportunity, I think, for businesses um here in Canberra. But uh, do you want to talk us through what's what's on offer?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, so what we looked for, and and it's a little bit in line with uh the university's strategy to reconnect or to connect with the community, um, it is to engage small and medium businesses, but Canberra business in general, to engage with the university to work or use research to drive their bottom line to innovate. Um, it's something that I feel is missing. Um may know I'm an economist by training, I look at high-level data. Um, Canberra has one of the highest levels of education, and in many countries, high levels of uh of education go hand in hand with more innovation and RD and productivity growth, uh, not in Canberra. So we are just average in with respect to what happens in innovative, research-driven, business innovation um compared to what happens in Australia, and this by being well ahead uh with respect to the quality of people we have.

Why Canberra Lags On Innovation

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So, what do you think drives that? Why why why do we lag behind?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Um you know, I'm a I'm a dean of business government law, and and uh there's business, but is it maybe sometimes the driver of innovation and there's government, and that makes it sometimes a little bit slow. I I feel a lot of this is is driven that by um we have a mentality to look for government to government for solutions. Unfortunately, in the business community as well, which is a problem, but it's also like I sometimes talk about my German accent, uh, it's a very different attitude uh and it's maybe a challenge uh not just for the community but also for universities to bring innovative thinkers in business together with innovative thinkers in uh the university and maybe even in government. So, how do we actually build uh what I call an ecosystem that um that is much more conducive to to growth, right? How can we get the ideas and get them from an idea status supported by research to something that can fly and and uh develop uh activity here?

What Businesses Can Research

SPEAKER_00 3:22

So um tell us a bit about exactly what the uh the grants available will do.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, so it they can address several types of um uh uh research priorities uh or capacity, can tap into that, what we can offer uh at the university. Um we actually would like to hear from businesses what they feel where research is needed, right? So you could start to think about uh that you think about new products and services, and you wonder how what could be a business plan for that. Um, there could be work around um, you know, what's the level of trust, for example, that people need to engage with a certain new product? Um what's the impact? We talk about that, and and I think you covered it on on the podcast or in work that the business chamber is doing of new legislation on businesses, on people, on workers. Um is it actually helpful or um do we have unintended consequences? All of these are questions that that could be addressed, uh, tapping into um uh different parts of the faculty. Uh we hear a lot about um uh innovations in let's say aged care health services. Um we hear about the NDIS. Um, you know, there may be business ideas out there in the community where you think, oh, I have this good idea, I would like to know, does this work? It could be other things where you say, Well, I have this gadget, whatever gadget is, uh, or this service and it doesn't yet completely work. Could we invest some work to to find out what's, you know, where is it, where's the sticking point, um, what is missing? Um all of these are ideas. The the great thing of innovation or the problem with innovation is or research, if you would have the answer already now, uh we wouldn't need to do the research, then it would be just implementation. A little bit of implementation we can do, but it is about what we can learn, right? We we want to get innovative product uh ideas, new ideas, and actually make it happen, bring new people together that that can then you know form this type of innovative activity that we see in other areas of the world.

How The Dollar Matching Works

SPEAKER_00 5:51

So quite a wide um spread of things that that could be included. Um uh and the university is going to co-match or going to match um funding of up to five thousand dollars for research projects, right?

Learning From Germany Style Collaboration

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Exactly. That's uh like we it's a starting point. The great thing is um if this goes well, right? It's a small, really small starting point. We want to make it easy, uh, we want to give businesses the chance to make the proposal and not have academics thinking, oh, this would be very nice from an ivory tower perspective. And um, so so it's really, you know, if you have a question that you find interesting where you would want to look into it, we want to find the matching academic for you. And the great thing is um like it's very small scale, but if this works well, there there's government funding that we can tap into, right? And it may be a starting point to work with uh with businesses on bigger and better things. Um, at this stage, one dollar investment from a business is matched by one dollar investment from the university. If we look into these uh bigger schemes, and and as I said, this could be a lead of that, um, there would be five or ten dollars from um from government partners for each dollar that that um the university and and businesses invest. So it's it's really starting to get into this um groove to work together on research. Yeah, um you we talked before, and uh part of the reason is um uh at events of the business chamber uh when I talked about my experience from my time in Brisbane, where we had a little bit of that, but even longer uh back in Germany, um that was much more normal, right? That businesses that are thinking about something new said, oh, it would be great to get actually some hard data on this idea. You know, can this really work? Can we work? And and and this matching in Meyer's worked much better, particularly if you go out of the big centers in population centers, the big cities in Germany. Local universities, and I think the University of Canberra would be a perfect example, would be one of the first points of contact for innovative businesses to talk about new ideas and try to find that. And I I'm very keen to see that happening here. Not only is it great for businesses and it will grow the region, but it will help us, it will help my academics, my my colleagues, to actually teach the the uh the workforce of the future for Canberra. Right? We don't teach a just a simple, or we don't have just business cases that are international business cases and we train for the world, but we actually get the type of knowledge, understanding, examples that are relevant for Canberra, and and if that's successful, um I think it will be really helpful for businesses, and it will be helpful for um the university sector here.

Why Even Tiny Businesses Fit

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Now there might be some business people listening to this who sort of think, oh, my business is too small to uh you know take part in research or to be doing research, or that oh, it might be a little bit daunting to think about getting um academic support for research for small business. Um what's your response to that?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Um I I think you have to get started with that, right? That's what we want to do. This is a very small, like not for small business, maybe not that small, but it's it's a small financial investment, and we we start to build trust and work together and see what happens. Um, I have to say, like my very first engagement with uh industry partners, even when I worked here in Australia, was uh I think at that time it was a one-and-a-ferson business that was still based uh back in Vienna, and we started to collaborate on on something very specific. Uh, she had a new technology to to actually that was used in a very innovative way in a consulting context. Um, and we actually drove this over several years, and it led to two ARC linkage grants. Uh, and and her main idea was by having a little bit of research done and talking about the research activity that fits the business that's happening, that in itself is a marketing advantage or was a marketing advantage for her. Um, and a lot of the grants then work to connect with via this research work with bigger businesses that were interested as well. Right? So it's it's a little bit, there's a couple of opportunities, I think, and that's why I would like to start this conversation, to think about how do we form teams. So it doesn't have to be that it's always restricted just to the one small business and the university. We can actually form new teams. Like that's the the um the miracle of collaboration, or when we talk about the the innovation ecosystem is is um is the network opportunities, right? By engaging with this research, um the academics will have contacts. You know, they may pull out other uh research that is done in a slightly different industry or somewhere else, uh and you get exposed to that, right? And and this will make the ideas that hopefully drive this application more powerful, and maybe you develop uh you know, you can learn from a broader audience. I think this type of exchange to make it happen, that's where some of the magic can happen.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah. Now you often hear about academic research that can take years to come to fruition. Um uh if you're sort of talking about a project worth sort of$10,000 or or up to$10,000, um, you know, how how soon could businesses expect to get research done, do you reckon?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I think that's a little bit a part of the project, precisely. Um, in my experience, the way I have worked in the past on projects like this, uh I think the direct insights for the business will be very quick. Three months, six months, depends a little bit on your design, depends on how much data you want to collect, depends on the commitment uh to provide the relatively uh the information. I would say it could be as short as four weeks. We then would want to see the collaboration continue to lead to an academic output as well. And that could be the type of thing, you know, you can share that, right? You can talk about it to your customers and say, look, we did this research, right? Looks good. There's some sort of evidence that that what we aim to do together is is actually make sense. Um and that may take a year to prepare. But the whole thing is the idea is to to um we have a timeline, uh, mid-April, roughly, you have to put your uh EOI in, or two, three weeks later, we met you with an academic. The academic will drive a lot of the application process, so don't worry too much about paperwork. We ask you a couple of questions, get going. And then a year later, we want to report back to the business community and showcase what can be done, and hopefully, you know, build on the conversation and see how we go, whether we can do this differently and not think um these are very different animals, the university and the business community in uh in Canberra.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

And ultimately drive using research to drive an improvement in a product or some productivity improvements is good for the bottom line of your business, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, that's I think there's very strong evidence on that. It may not work uh for everyone. I wouldn't say, look, if you you know your business and it's the same thing that we do for 500 years, that's maybe not the type of business uh where we look at, but I I do feel there's a lot more potential for innovative business, and we see that, right? We de we do see I recently um met with a couple of uh uh Australian colleagues uh who partner with with uh German universities and move their business from Canberra to Germany because there the ecosystem was more conducive to it. I would like to see this happening here. I um uh I I don't think it's a great idea to let like Germany, but uh to let people partner that far.

Productivity Barriers And Mindset Shifts

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Well, we certainly want to keep Canberra businesses here in Canberra, right? And see them grow and indeed attract new businesses to the territory. That's uh a key part of the raison d'etre of the chamber. So we're really keen to uh to see that happen, and this is a great initiative to help. Uh more generally, Uva, I mean, what do you think are the the big barriers to driving innovation and business here in Canberra, here in Australia, um, and and helping improve our productivity overall?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Um very uh these are the big questions now that we talk about. I I do feel um the mindset is driven not that much by government, but by having a large part of the economy based on resources. So I think we are very good in digging holes in the ground and selling stuff, not doing much with the stuff, which is in my eyes a problem already. Um we are in many ways very reluctant uh to change because this has been a very easy path and a good path for a long time. Um I think those are challenges. Uh, and and sometimes I think we we believe everything is very innovative, and if you look overseas, um it's not. Like I give you one example. Um, we we deliver part of our programs in China and even in Bhutan, and uh credit cards are there uh now a thing more or less of the past. Like people look at you as if you're a dinosaur if you try to pay with a credit card. You use different technologies, and we still believe we are on the forefront of, let's say, payment systems. Um it's it's somehow important to open uh the eyes, and that's a little bit again the idea, right? I think universities have this problem in Australia that they are a little bit separate, but universities also have the opportunity that you can be a bit more open, you can actually see what is documented out there, what what is the research showing, uh, what happens elsewhere, and this can open or broaden your your mind, uh, give you ideas, can drive things here. Uh, and that's what I I would like to see. I think, as I said, we we saw companies actually being founded out of research at Australian universities that then goes overseas. I we could also really bring businesses with their ideas and and and to universities. That's the direction that's missing. And maybe it changes a bit of the mindset there as well. I don't know whether that really answers the question, but I would say this dominance of um of a mining and resource sector is a problem, uh that's a very interesting way to make money, uh not one that is particularly strong on building this innovation capacity.

What Asia Shows About Research

SPEAKER_00 17:07

And of course, that's not a not a problem we have here in the ACT, uh, right, given our lack of uh lack of mineral resources here. Um, you mentioned the sort of the much closer relationship between uh academia, universities, and business in places like Germany. But what's the experience elsewhere around the world? What are we seeing in other parts of the globe, Asia, for example?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Yeah, um that's an interesting question. I think there is a general um um uh more entrepreneurial spirit, so a little bit that's what we would like to hope to see as well. Uh my some my observation is sometimes, and and we talked about that I think in other contexts, particularly in the ACT, we very quickly look to government um for solutions instead of uh maybe starting to think about let's first think about the solution and then present a solution to government. Um I would say what I've seen, particularly in Asia, is there's a lot of appreciation for research and education. So that's helpful. Australia is a little bit more, it's a bit odd to to um uh like you know have this German accent in Germany. If you work at the university, everybody has an idea what you do. Here, um, uh when I started here, people said, What do you do at the university? And they say, Well, you're working only for six months uh a year, you know, what else do you do? And and you try to talk about research. We have very little idea about what that means. So that's I think what we want to overcome. Um I find particularly my experience in China is uh this is a much closer relationship. There's very close relationships of businesses. Um the University of Canberra has graduates in in Ningbo. I don't know whether people have an idea, that's by now one of the biggest ports in the world, um, that are very innovative businesses, and they started small some 15 years ago, and and it's very close bringing together research that happens at universities with um activities that happen outside universities, and there's a very strong exchange between the two.

Where To Apply And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 19:23

So, research can drive innovation, and innovation, of course, drives growth and ultimately sustainability for business. Over Dalek, thank you so much for joining me on the Canberra Business Podcast to talk about the Small Business Innovation Ecosystem Research Initiative. Um, all the details are on uh our website at Canberra Business.com, um, but also on the universities at uh uh www.cambra.edu.au, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Yes, and uh we look forward to seeing your ideas and expressions of interest. I think this will be an exciting opportunity and check in next year when we talk about the successes.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Excellent. Uva, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, this has been the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm uh Greg Harford. I've been talking to Uva Dallock, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business Government and Law at the University of Canberra, and I'll catch you next time.