The FRDC's new R&D Plan signals a change of direction, building on systems thinking, and acknowledges a need to find new and better ways to make progress, including building on design-thinking to ensure that the right problems are solved, the right way. There is opportunity, as this is done, to leverage off shifting occupational norms associated with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic by experimenting with new, less expensive, more inclusive and democratic ways of thinking and working together that might endure into the future.

The FRDC’s new R&D Plan signals an intent to co-invest and collaborate more actively in order to deliver impact, and this will be particularly important in early years to overcome revenue limitations associated with COVID impacts.

The 2020-25 R&D Plan also describes an intention to develop and implement a new performance measurement framework to coordinate the monitoring of organisational progress against the five R&D Plan outcomes, as well as corporate performance. The aim is for the framework to be adaptive and updateable as new information becomes available, and as benchmarks for best practice change.

To assist in planning and investing in a complex and adaptive system it is proposed to scope and implement new process for collating and generating insights from intelligence, that will provide continuous feedback on external conditions, technology changes and external factors likely to be relevant in the future.

This proposal seeks to enable building of the foundations for implementing the FRDC's 2020-25 R&D Plan, scoping and implementing the new intelligence system, delivery of consultation to guide implementation of the plan, and enabling finalisation and implementation of the new performance management framework.