How should governments engage with innovation ecosystems? Research by the Acton Institute, examining over 90 innovation districts globally, finds no governance model that reliably outperforms others. What matters is whether arrangements align with local institutional foundations and address each ecosystem's binding constraint, the weakest capability that limits returns from all other investment. This Insight catalogues twelve governance categories from Silicon Valley to Singa

The productivity lag from AI reveals competing logics: automation that replaces labour to cut costs versus augmentation that expands capability to create value. For innovation ecosystems, this choice is existential. Strict safety regulations risk creating moats favouring large incumbents, while unrestricted deployment threatens research quality. The narrow path requires public interest AI infrastructure, risk-weighted governance, and incentives rewarding high-impact discovery

Australia's Future Made in Australia strategy risks building the factories of tomorrow while outsourcing their digital brains. This new Innovation Insight argues that Computer and Information Services (CIS)—including software, AI, and cloud platforms—must be recognised as essential infrastructure, not an afterthought. This Insight proposes a dedicated Digital Enablement stream into the FiMA National Interest Framework. Without this, we risk building yesterday’s industries wit

Australia has achieved remarkable success in consumer-facing applications. But it faces a crucial challenge developing platform technologies