Australia as a Triple Helix exemplar: built upon a foundation of resource and institutional coordination and strategic consensus

Abstract

Australia’s phenomenal success in developing as a global wine exporter deserves more attention from the point of view of economic and competitiveness strategy. Its success embodies the expectations of the Triple Helix that there will be institutions explicitly oriented towards developing end extending industry-relevant research, and that industry targets will be coordinated with public, collective aims. Australia stretches this framework even further by showing it can work on a large scale, with multiple layers of coordination, without alienating smaller and local producers. It reinforces the findings of other successful cases in this special issue by demonstrating the importance of a common long-term strategy, the value of an industry levy that funds research, the underlying social capital that makes coordination possible, and the importance of specialisation and marketing. Nonetheless, Australia’s wine industry also faces serious challenges that suggest a further evolution of its Triple Helix institutions will be required for continued success.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Australian wine industry for their cooperation with this research. E-mails were sent out to a number of stakeholders in spring 2012. Interviews with industry support institutions, including AWRI, GWRDC, WGGA, CSRO, WFA, Wine Australia, SARDI and University of Adelaide, were conducted by A. Hira in June 2012; these same interviewees were then contacted for feedback on the draft. For purposes of openness, anonymity was granted to all sources. Euan Fleming of the University of New England gave valuable feedback and encouragement. All evaluations and interpretations are evidently solely those of the authors. Field research was funded by Genome Canada, Genome BC, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. Comments from the wine industry and wine experts were received on a preliminary draft at a conference organised by Andy Hira at Simon Fraser University in Fall 2012.