The department has completed the Focusing Australia’s Publicly Funded Research Review. The review was undertaken from February to July 2011 inclusive and examined a number of issues in regards to the nature and utility of Australia’s publicly funded research arrangements, with a particular focus on priority-setting. It addressed the following issues:
- The roles of publicly funded research agencies to ensure they do not unnecessarily overlap with each other and/or other sectors in the research system
- The appropriateness of the current level and balance of public funding for different types of research
- The utility of the current public funding arrangements including the role of the National Research Priorities in meeting national priorities and needs
- The value of a long-term strategy to provide collaborative research infrastructure
- Options to develop performance measures to evaluate publicly funded research programs.
The outcomes of the review were announced by the Australian Government, 3 November 2011.
Maximising the Innovation Dividend: Review Key Findings and Future Directions
The Maximising the Innovation Dividend: Review Key Findings and Future Directions report [
PDF 655KB] [
DOC 1.05MB] sets out the review key findings and the recommendations, which have been accepted by the Australian Government.
The review recommended:
- Establishment of an Australian Research Committee
- Refreshing the National Research Priorities
- A feasibility study on research impact assessment
- Encouraging collaboration between universities and the end-users of research.
Supporting documents
Other documents that were prepared as part of the review process:
The background and Terms of Reference for the review process are available.