Business incubation in Australia : policies, practices and outcomes

This paper provides a brief overview of the development of business incubation across Australia. The first incubators appeared in the country in the early 1980s, funded by state and territory governments. This was shortly followed by an extensive program of support from the federal government, which led to a rapid expansion from 49 incubators in 1996 to almost one hundred in 2005. Australian incubation has a number of distinctive characteristics. Most have usually been initiated and subsequently managed by a local municipality, regional economic development organisation or business group, with support from government. Almost all incubators operate as not-for-profit ventures. Government assistance is usually directed towards the establishment of centres, rather than supporting their on-going operations. The most common form are either stand-alone models, or else ones embedded with other small business support centres; technology-based incubators represent a much smaller proportion of the overall incubator population, and there is a relatively low level of involvement by universities and the research sector. Australian incubators are, in the main, focused on providing support to the general small business community and nascent entrepreneurs, rather than on commercialising technology from research bodies. The emphasis has therefore been on providing affordable, flexible office space for tenants; access to shared resources; business advice and help; and links to professional and commercial networks, rather than commercialisation through technology transfer and capital inflows.