Australian companies are keen consumers of tertiary training but their engagement with publicly funded research remains almost subterranean.
A mammoth OECD report has ranked Australia second only to Denmark in terms of investment in staff training. But Australian companies remained among the least inclined to look to universities or other research institutions for innovative ideas. 
This year's OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard also found Australia is performing below par in higher education and research investment. It ranks 13th out of 36 countries on higher education spending and 14th out of 37 nations on gross domestic expenditure on research and development, behind the OECD average on both measures.
Australia spends 1.6 per cent of its GDP on higher education - about one-quarter of a percentage point below the OECD average. And it spends 2.1 per cent of GDP on R&D, well behind the 4.2 per cent benchmark set by world leaders Israel and South Korea, and significantly below the OECD average of 2.4 per cent.
The report says total R&D spending across the OECD climbed 2.7 per cent to $US1.1 trillion in 2013. Business shouldered an increasing share of the load, with government R & D spending hit by "budget consolidation" measures.
"Downturns tend to accelerate structural change and create new challenges and opportunities," the report observes.
But OECD Secretary-General Jose Angel Gurria warned governments not to take a back seat.
"Public funding has underpinned many of the technologies driving growth today, from the digital economy to genomics," Mr Angel Gurria said. "We must continue to lay the technological foundations for new inventions and solutions, and not let investment in long-term research wane." The Australian research sector has avoided the fate of its counterparts in Iceland, Canada and Luxembourg, where the proportion of GDP spent on R&D has slipped significantly since 2003. But Australian spending on ICT has fallen by more than 1 per cent over that period - the biggest such plunge across the OECD.
This leaves the country in danger of missing out on a "new generation" of ICT trends - including big data, quantum computing and the so-called Internet of Things - which the report says are helping to lay the groundwork for "profound transformations" to future life and work.
The report says that formal and on-the-job training by Australian companies added an average 6.3 per cent to the value of their products - the highest value-added contribution from firm-specific training in any country. "Investment intensity doubles when both forms of training are offered together," the report says.
But Australian companies overwhelmingly looked to suppliers, customers, competitors and consultants - anyone but uni-versities - for inspiration. Australia is ranked fourth highest in the world in relying on these "market sources" for innovation ideas - behind Turkey, Israel and Switzerland - and less likely than most to look to institutional sources.However, the report notes that "market sources predominate in all countries, while institution sources play a much smaller role".