In Summary

Economist and intellectual property expert, Professor Beth Webster, joins Swinburne University of Technology as Director of the Centre for Transformative Innovation.

The Centre for Transformative Innovation is one of two multi-disciplinary research centres within Swinburne’s Faculty of Business and Law. The Centre contributes to improving Australia’s innovative capacity through understanding all aspects of the processes in turning ideas and inventions into products or services.

“Professor Webster’s specialist knowledge in the economics of innovation, research and development and intellectual property complements the Faculty of Business and Law’s commitment to education that infuses entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership,” Professor Michael Gilding, Executive Dean for the Faculty of Business and Law said.

Professor Webster said the Centre will be a beacon for innovation and researchers and policy analysts throughout the world.

“By bringing many of Australia’s leading researchers into the science of innovation together under the same roof, Swinburne will be raising the standard of debate in Australia and the credibility of evidence before us,” Professor Webster said.

Professor Webster holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and economics degrees from Monash University. She is currently the Director of the Intellectual Property Institute of Australia. She is also a Professorial Fellow with the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne.

She contributes to evidence-based policy debates in the media and is published regularly in both local and international academic journals..

She is also a member of a number of government committees, including the Council for Economic Development Council on Economic Policy, the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property and the Australian Council of Learned Academies Working Group on ‘The role of science, research and technology in lifting Australia’s productivity.’

View the Centre for Transformative Innovation’s current research projects.