An Economic Analysis of FRDC Investment in Knowledge Extension - Workshops and Conferences (Cluster 23)

Background

Much of the investment in this cluster of projects was associated with capacity building for both industry and research. As such this investment was part of FRDC’s smallest program (Program 3), called the People Development Program.

The goal of the FRDC's People Development Program is to invest in research and development activities that develop the capabilities of the people to whom the industry entrusts its future (http://www.frdc.com.au/communitypeople/people-devlopment-program. The program covers investment in such activities as personal and professional development opportunities, scholarships and bursaries to build leadership, skills and capabilities, networks and knowledge, knowledge transfer and adoption, as well as workshops, conferences and awards.

Workshops and conferences are a mainstream aspect of the R&D environment. The sharing of knowledge and the interaction between research personnel are fundamental to knowledge generation and capacity building. Workshops and conferences are avenues whereby such activities occur and have been supported strongly by FRDC.

FRDC funded workshops and conferences are not only a realm of scientist and researcher exchange but also among industry personnel for industry management and policy purposes. Also of major importance is the facilitation of communication between industry and science that has positive knowledge application outcomes.

Apart from capacity building benefits that have implications for future management and operations of the fisheries and research industries, these investments have delivered industry benefits in the shorter term. These benefits have been delivered via facilitation of adoption of improved management practices between members of individual fishing industries as well as between different fishing industries and fisheries. There have also been some benefits from improved communication and market and policy development for specific industries and more broadly across the fishing industry as a whole.

 

 

Lessons Learnt for Future Investment

Lessons learnt from this analysis include:

• It would be helpful to future evaluations if the FRDC project management system were able to more easily extract funding information by financial year across a range of individual R&D areas. While some capacity to do this does exist, the system could be made more friendly by requiring project managers to provide a wider range of category inputs at the time of contracting or final report assessment. Such an initiative may prove valuable not only in evaluation but also in planning and reporting.
• If leverage factors for projects in different R&D areas were available at an R&D area level (for both FRDC project funding and for the national context), they may be important in assessing the FRDC current and prospective roles in different areas and where public benefits are manifest but where funding is difficult to attract.
• A third observation noted is that the projects in this cluster do not necessarily address any of the Key Performance Indicators in the current R&D plan.
• Finally, in the interests of addressing the marginality issue, it could be of interest for FRDC to document the workshops and conferences not supported and the criteria on which funding decisions were made. Such a principle could apply also to project selection/rejection in other R&D areas.

Conclusions

Investment was made in a total of 19 projects within the cluster with the FRDC contribution approximating 20% of the total costs of investment.

Ten benefits associated with this investment were identified. On the basis of equal weighting for each benefit, it could be concluded that public benefits to Australia could make up 67% of the total benefits, the remainder being industry benefits. If benefits were subjectively weighted, then public benefits would contribute 58% of the total.

One important benefit delivered by the investment was the greater focus and cohesion in addressing industry problems and solutions resulting in efficiencies along the supply chain and improved policy and market development for a number of wild catch and aquaculture industries.

A second important benefit associated with these projects has been the building of additional scientific capacity which has lead to an increased rate of innovation, ideas tested earlier then otherwise, project proposals that better reflect industry needs, and improved collaboration among researchers. Of the 19 projects in the cluster, at least 17 projects would have provided such benefits.

Overall, the investment criteria estimated for the total investment of $2.9 million (present value of costs) in the 19 projects in the cluster were a present value of benefits of $7.1 million, a net present value estimated at $4.2 million, and a benefit-cost ratio of 2.5, all estimated using a discount rate of 5% (benefits estimated over 30 years from the final year of investment).

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