Current research focus

CEDA’s Public Interest Technology program focuses on how emerging technologies can be designed, developed and used in the public interest.

How we advance and adopt technology and the use of data will fundamentally shape Australia’s economic and social development. Data and emerging technologies, used wisely and in the public interest, have the potential to deliver significant benefits.  

This program of work aligns with CEDA's PIT Member Advisory Committee, that brings together technologists, policy makers and business to further development, take-up and use of technology and data in a way that enables a dynamic economy and maximises individual and community choice, opportunity and wellbeing. 

Following the inaugural CEDA PIT forum held in 2020, CEDA is looking to lead a national discussion on what public interest technology means in practice and how to embed this approach to emerging tech.

Drawing on insights from the forum, our priorities include: building awareness of the importance of digital ethics and ethics in practice, regulation and regulatory frameworks for emerging tech, demystifying tech, building tech and public interest awareness and capability. 

Technology and trust: Priorities for a reimagined economy led by technology

The first CEDA report on Public Interest Technology priorities for government surveys the issues with Australia's current approach to technology and the digital economy. The report recommends appointing a Chief Technologist and committing to transparent and independent technology assessments to help Australia become a leading digital nation. Read the report here.

CEDA’s PIT program is supported by our Foundation Partners: Google, IBM and KPMG and guided by the PIT Member Advisory Committee (MAC).

PIT Member Advisory Committee:

• Feyi Akindoyeni, Partner, Newgate Australia
• Melinda Cilento, Chief Executive, CEDA
• Kaaren Koomen AM, Director, Governmental and Regulatory Affairs, IBM
• Simon Goodrich, Founder and Managing Director, Portable
• Nyk Loates, Director, KPMG Futures, Innovation, Solutions and Ventures
• Alex Lynch, Public Policy and Government Affairs Manager, Google Australia
• Sam Nickless, Partner, Gilbert + Tobin
• Andrew Stevens, Chairman, Innovation and Science Australia
• Prof. Glenn Wightwick, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Innovation and Enterprise), University of Technology, Sydney

Foundation partners: 

CEDA’s research on migration seeks to promote greater transparency of Australia’s migration system, establish a greater understanding of the economic impacts of migration and recommend policy settings that promote a more efficient migration system that addresses demographic challenges and skills needs.

In March 2021 CEDA released A good match: Optimising Australia's permanent skilled migration. This major report explores the mismatch in Australia's permanent skilled migration system, finding nearly a quarter of permanent skilled migrants in Australia are working in a job beneath their skill level. This builds on our past analysis including Temporary migration in Australia (2019) and Migration – the skills mismatch. 

You can read CEDA's recent submission to Federal Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on  skilled migration here. It includes five recommendations based on our research in this space.

Business dynamism is critical for a successful economy. A dynamic economy is one in which businesses are continually starting and failing, expanding and contracting. 

Dynamism enables innovation, risk-taking, entrepreneurship and skills development. These are the key ingredients to our competitiveness as a nation, and our ability to expand existing industries and develop new industries on the world stage, in turn boosting wages and living standards.

Since the early 2000s, business dynamism has fallen in many advanced economies. Fewer people are starting new businesses, fewer people are switching jobs, and resources are slower to move from low-performing to high-performing firms.  

There are worrying signs that the Australian economy has become less dynamic and competitive across these areas and a broader range of indicators, such as slow growth in our start-up sector, weak private sector investment and declining business expenditure on R&D. All of this has contributed to Australians’ flatlining incomes in recent years. 

As a member-based think-tank, CEDA is well placed to leverage the insights of members in its business dynamism and competitiveness research. This year, working with members across business, higher education and government, CEDA will explore:

1. The practices within companies and management that are holding back dynamism – a much neglected area of research in Australia compared to other advanced economies. 

2. How Australia can lift collaboration between universities, businesses and government to better diffuse and commercialise our world class research and knowledge.

Read an article from CEDA Senior Economist Melissa Wilson on why improving business dynamism in Australia is crucial to driving our international competitiveness.

CEDA also recently made a submission on this topic to the Federal Government University Research Commercialisation Scheme scoping expert panel. You can read the submission here.

In 2021, CEDA’s work continues in human services to identify practical solutions to deliver better human services for Australians. 

Building on our report Disrupting Disadvantage, CEDA is focusing on data sharing and how it can improve service delivery, government accountability, inform policy development and empower citizens by improving the accessibility of healthcare, aged care, disability care, housing and crisis services.

We will release an information paper on the aged care workforce; release a major research report in the second instalment of our Disrupting Disadvantage  series and convene a national discussion that progresses solutions to reduce female rates of incarceration and recidivism at our justice forum.