What does New Zealand have in common with Iceland? Both outrank Australia in the latest survey on global innovation. In fact, Australia lags well behind the likes of Japan, Canada and Finland.
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But all lag well behind the top three - Switzerland, Sweden and the UK - with even Ireland ranked well within the top ten.
Anxious to ensure Australia maximises the return from its large research and development spending, both Federal and state governments have been pushing the 'innovation' button with a host of policies aimed at bolstering the area given wholesale changes to the business sector emerging from the digital revolution.
The global survey, compiled by Cornell University, Insead and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, found that in areas such as our education system and business regulation, stable government and strong legal system, Australia rates highly. But it is in areas such as patent registration, patent royalty payments, business clusters, IT skills, industrial design and a host of other areas where Australia lags.
"If you're trying to bring a new-world invention to market, you do need a full eco-system in place," says Catherine Welch, associate professor of international business at Sydney University. "And that's where we fall down."
Her work has found Australia lacks depth in a host of areas needed to get a product to market, quite apart from the need to access ongoing research and development funding to succeed.
"For a new-to-the-world innovation, it takes 10, 20, 30 years to get to market - and public policy under-estimates that."
Also eco-systems involve collaboration and co-operation, and this is often where Australia fails.
"There are positives, but we won't know for 10-15 years whether they will pay off," she says. "You have to be prepared to fail. Most inventions don't make it. The ideal is people learn from their failures."
Cochlear's success with its bionic ear involved heavy public subsidies, for example, along with the collaboration of both universities and the private sector which took decades to achieve success.
"You need large companies with global scale to succeed, and Australia doesn't have that," Sydney University's Professor Welch said. "Australia has also suffered since it has traditionally been a branch office economy."
As for Ireland, much of its high ranking stems from the fact that a number of large US companies such as Apple, hold key patent licences in that country which inflates its patent royalty and licence income, helping to boost its standing in the index.
