System strategies: application of technology and national systems of innovation theory to the case of australian rural research and development

Recent research has examined 'systems' o f innovation at the 'national' and 'technology' levels. This paper examines the efficiency and complementarity of these approaches through consideration of Australian rural research and development. Australian rural research and development underwent a period of sustained organizational and managerial charge during the 1980s and ear& 1990s. Much of that change has been surrounded by controvercy, due to the nature ofthe reforms that haze been implemented in the sector. The transition from a scattered and disparate research effort prior to 1985, to an effort which is today highly structured, commodity specific and strategically oriented, raises a number of issues concerning the processes used, the motirlation for the change and the manner in which change has been accomplished, The systems approaches of Nelson, Lundvall and Carlsson are used in this paper to examine the reforms that have been experienced in the sector. In so doing, the paper assesses their value as methods of empirical analyses, as well as proriding explanations of change as it has been experienced in the Australian research and development community to move beyond the somewhat restricted investigations of the past.