1. To provide an operational priority assessment framework which could be used to identify broad areas of research opportunity

2. To use this framework to identify the research areas that are likely to provide the greatest potential benefits on a fishery-by-fishery basis

3. To provide an operational mechanism that can be used to rank fisheries research proposals and choose the research portfolio with the highest expected pay-offs while taking into account the risks associated with each research project

4. To provide annual gross value of production estimates for Australian fisheries for a three year period.