Productivity solutions paper: building a stronger, fairer economy for Australia

Key messages

Australia’s productivity challenge won’t be solved by a single reform. It requires coordinated action across education, industry and research. The paper’s key messages are:

• Fund work-integrated learning and make it universal. 
  Government, universities and industry should co-fund and expand placements, practicums and paid earn-and-learn pathways, and guarantee access for low-SES, regional and disabled students via a national placement accessibility framework. 
  Draws on recs 1, 2, 5, 8, 10. 
• Build one connected, lifelong tertiary system. 
  Roll out the National Skills Passport and a national academic-credit/RPL system, dissolve the VET–higher education divide, and recognise AI and digital microcredentials so people can re-skill across their working lives. 
  Draws on recs 3, 6, 7, 9. 
• Reward real-world research impact and connect SMEs. 
  Reform R&D assessment, tax and incentive settings to value translation, commercialisation and industry-funded research alongside academic outputs, and actively connect small and medium businesses to university capability and infrastructure. 
  Draws on recs 4, 11, 12, 13, 14. 
• Give research stable funding and back innovation precincts. 
  Secure long-term, predictable funding for applied and foundational research, coordinate place-based precincts across governments, and align university research and compute infrastructure with the National AI Plan to build sovereign capability. 
  Draws on recs 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. 
• Set a coordinated international-education strategy. 
  Finalise an International Education and Skills Strategic Framework, back university-led transnational education with strong quality assurance, and diversify student markets across the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia to cut concentration risk. 
  Draws on recs 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.