The independent Review of the Research and Development (R&D) Start Program, completed in the second half of 2003, was based on a comprehensive survey of Start recipients designed to collect detailed qualitative data on benefits and costs, R&D inputs, outputs and outcomes.
Analysis of the survey data indicated that R&D Start generates significant levels of private and national benefits.
Recipient responses indicate:
- High expected private returns from the R&D;
- High expectations that they would be able to retain the competitive edge the R&D will confer, provided they maintain ongoing R&D;
- That two-thirds expect that further government assistance would be required to allow them to maintain their competitive edge;
- That over half the respondees expect an increase in skills of their employees and the development of a platform technology as a significant benefit to their firm; and
- The main economic impacts of the R&D to be:
- development of a new or better product, service or process;
- development of technology to reduce respondents’ costs;
- increased intellectual property; and
- increased opportunity to engage in new ventures for collaboration.
Data from grant recipients indicated that the program generates high additional national benefits.
Assessed against the main rationale for R&D subsidies - knowledge spillovers - the review finds that the net national benefits of the program are uncertain because of the wide range of estimates of spillovers and the inherent uncertainty of estimating spillovers. However, based on the data from grant recipients, there are high additional national benefits - 33 per cent of the total benefits are attributed to the Start funding, resulting in a benefit cost ratio of 4.5:1 for Start funds. This means for every dollar invested in Start, the community in total receives $4.50 in return.