THE arrival of Malcolm Turnbull as a tech-savvy Prime Minister has given an undeniable boost to the national conversation about innovation.

Budget-wise, federal spending on research and innovation is probably little different to what it was under Tony Abbott.

But as the Turnbull government’s Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne, said at a recent conference, “innovation has moved into the centre of public debate, and rightly so”.

Research organisations around the country are being encouraged from the very highest levels of government to join the national innovation push.

In an era when one business will often succeed by disrupting the old ways of another, the Hunter cannot afford to be left behind in the race to build a new economy.

To this end, RDA Hunter – as this area’s arm of the Regional Development Australia agency is known – is pushing to build trade and research links with the European Union, having bench-marked the Hunter’s performance against the EU in a study last year.

RDA Hunter is banking on a “smart specialisation” strategy, which it says matches the EU’s approach to economic development and trade.

Of course RDA Hunter is hardly the first organisation in this region to promote innovation. Indeed, for all its reputation as an industrial basin built on steel and coal, the Hunter has enjoyed a long and proud history of industrial and technological breakthroughs, with a succession of publicly and industry funded organisations playing leading roles over the years.

The details of some plans for change will have been lost to history. But each generation of innovators stands on the foundations set by its predecessors, and the best lessons from each wave of change are absorbed into the way we live and work.

In this light, the work of nano-pharmaceutics researcher Dr Susan Hua is made possible by the resources of the Hunter Medical Research Institute, which was in turn was brought into being by the efforts of Hunter academics and their supporters.

As a regional centre, Newcastle will always have to fight the capital cities for its funding. We need to champion our own successes, which is why the Newcastle Herald has begun a series of reports highlighting the transformation of our economy.

The changes are well under way.

View the Newcastle Herald editorial http://www.theherald.com.au/story/3540810/editorial-innovation-a-prescription-for-hunter-sucess/