What should rural R&D investment look like? Kate Grenot Rural R&D Council Chair.

What should rural R&D investment look like?

Kate GrenotRural R&D Council Chair

Rural Research and Development Council

Established in 2009 to advise the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on matters of R&D in order to improve the productivity, profitability, sustainability and global competitiveness of Australia’s agriculture, fisheries, forestry and food industries, with benefits for individual rural businesses, the environment and the wider community.

Terms of Reference

To develop a National Strategic Rural R&D Investment Plan

To establish a performance measurement and reporting framework

To foster cooperation, collaboration and capacity

Our Expectations

• That long-waves of technological change and economic development will continue

• That the current wave will redress disturbing global trends in rural R&D

• That R&D investment patterns that have formed in Australia between 1920 and 2010 will adjust accordingly

• That this will result in an elevation of rural R&D in this country, and

• That efficiency gains will follow.

Your ExpectationsExcerpts from consultation feedback (n>60)

There will be change

• ‘The role of Australian agriculture and agricultural research will undergo profound change in the coming decades as the world adjusts to a carbon-constrained economy, issues of food and fuel security, sustainability, and the impacts of climate change among others’

• ‘Our region has been given a new lease of life in the last five years from new seed grain varieties that can grow in our area on red dirt under drought conditions …some people are working on competing fertilisers and biologic sprays … it is an exciting time at the moment … please encourage people who are embracing change to keep going and encourage new ideas’

• ‘Critical adaptation to climate change should include agriculture and forestry’

Your ExpectationsExcerpts from consultation feedback

• ‘There are significant opportunities for the rural sector to be transformed through the uptake of new technologies and breakthroughs in a variety of science areas such as biology’

• ‘The challenge for the rural sector is to both ‘back winners’ which infers that not all players will be supported, while at the same time, taking risks on new and emerging players’

• ‘By its nature, research and development needs to be primarily proactive rather than reactive in addressing the continually changing agricultural challenges and opportunities’

• ‘Overall, the R&D system is not adapting to change at a sufficient rate compared to how quickly some of these large-scale, national challenges emerge. The system is responsive but not sufficiently proactive’

Your Expectations Excerpts from consultation feedback

There will be a national plan

• ‘An urgent imperative is for the Rural R&D system to establish a coordinated approach to Rural R&D investment’

• ‘Australia should clearly develop a result-oriented research and development agenda and embed this over the next decade’

• ‘By their nature, overarching ‘national investment plans’ are strategic rather than operational. The plan should guide the research agencies rather than become another layer of administration’

• ‘There is a significant opportunity for the primary industry sector to [develop] a new rural innovation policy framework that seeks to leverage the combined capabilities and talents of Australia to tackle the big cross-cutting issues’

Your Expectations Excerpts from consultation feedback

• ‘Role clarity will ensure that a broad range of national needs is met, without unnecessary duplication or inefficient use of resources – particularly important in a very competitive world’

• ‘To balance short-term claims with long-term requirements is a challenge … ‘there is no single solution. It requires discipline ... and a commitment to our strategy and vision for what we should be contributing to Australia’

• ‘We need genuine thinking’

• ‘We need confidence that rural R&D is funded for a long time’


We will build on our assets

• ‘Any significant change needs to ensure that the connection from R&D through to end-users is not disrupted nor should it lead to an overall reduction in impact’

• ‘Recognise the importance of National Facilities and Collections and ensure that they are funded on an ongoing and sustainable basis via separate and identified budgets’

• ‘Water and soil management techniques are prime examples of Australia’s comparative research advantage and continue to receive high levels of [global] attention’

• ‘A well-established culture of industry benefit amongst Rural R&D researchers that does not exist in other countries’


We will achieve efficiency gains

• ‘As with most systems that evolve over extended timescales, redundancy has accumulated … as operational, funding, and structural responses have been implemented to adapt to changing needs, situations, policy and governance requirements’

• ‘Opportunities to reduce transaction costs and duplication must be pursued vigorously, focussing on better role definition and a shared strategic framework’

• ‘One could argue that there is still a lot of mileage to be made out of existing research information’


Rural R&D Corporations are part of the adjustment

• ‘The RDC system is a world-class system which is the envy of the agricultural R&D sector internationally … however, there are some shortcomings which, if addressed, would add strength to system to the benefit of all stakeholders’

• ‘Australia’s RDC’s should be consolidated [fewer] operational entities. Every effort should be taken to avoid duplication and administrative expenditure’

• ‘It is essential that, during the current review process, rural R&D momentum, existing national and international RD&E partnerships and critical expertise are not lost while the system is reviewed and recommendations developed and implemented’

We need cross-sectoral funds

• ‘Many cross cutting agricultural research issues including climate change are sector wide (rather than industry specific) and require a more integrated approach. Present structures do not preclude such an approach, but a common research fund for cross cutting priorities could be considered. The challenge would be to avoid a new bureaucratic structure’

• ‘We support the creation of a different funding model for large cross-sector research programs that is separate from the strong industry focused funding mechanisms. This could also assist in bringing scale to the quantum of investment- something that is necessary for large multi-disciplinary approaches’

• ‘The xxx model was not easy to implement. It required significant changes in administrative processes and structure … behaviours and roles also needed to change. It required sustained commitment from the top leadership’


We need people

• ‘The demographics of Australia’s current agricultural research scientists raise real succession concerns which need attention in both the tertiary and vocational education sectors to maintain and improve national research and adoption capacity into the future’

• ‘A geographically-dispersed capacity across Australia offering regional solutions to industry, with researchers willing to collaborate broadly to generate critical mass’

• ‘Universities should be encouraged and rewarded for developing strong partnership with rural industries and farmer groups’

• ‘Contestability can lead to superior outcomes but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself’


We are part of a global system

• ‘The rural R&D system should have a global outlook and reach’

• ‘Australian agricultural R&D is internationally respected’

• ‘Co-funding opportunities and wider access to expertise, together with Australian scientific skills, lie at the core of productive [bi- and multi-lateral] partnerships’

• ‘Most agriculturally-based companies in Australia are small by global standards. Large multinational agricultural companies have not traditionally based significant R&D activities in Australia. However, there are signs that this is changing’

• ‘Given the increasing private good nature of some technologies (germplasm, etc) the proportion of privately-funded R&D is likely to increase’


It is going to be quite a team

• ‘We include production and natural resource management areas as well as downstream processing such as food and fibre industries in our definition of rural R&D’

• ‘System change that capture investment from processors, retailers and the like would grow the funds available and increase understanding and appreciation of the role of R&D in the whole supply chain’

• ‘Both community and industry diversity are under-represented in segments of the overall rural R&D system’, and

• ‘The three commissioned reports have scant reference to bioenergy’


What next?

The Council will use this feedback to further consider what rural R&D investment should look like, through five lenses:

•Climate change Complex research market, global programs, long-term cross-

portfolio challenges, adjustment-oriented, from basic research through to experimental development, requiring consideration the relationships between food, fibre, energy, water and carbon

•Food security Intergenerational, making and moving it, localised opportunities,

new technology platforms, biophysical and elemental constraints (incl. phosphorus)

• Industry development Reliable, leveraged across value chains, distributed risk, increasingly renewable, some common issues, managed development of industries, absorptive of change, broader definition of farm sector corporate

• InternationalElite and competitive, optimal coordination of aid-, trade- and scientific drivers, sustaining and capitalising on research strengths, enduring, highly incl. virtually mobile

• PeopleEnough, informed, equipped, connected, electronic, mobile, financially stable, valued.

This will occur in parallel with other planning activities:

• Climate change Australia’s Farming Future, CSIRO, CCRSPI and associated initiatives

• Food security PMSEIC Expert Working Group on Food SecurityPMSEIC Expert Working Group on the Energy – Carbon – Water IntersectionPrimary Industries Ministerial Council Rural RD&E Framework (cross-sectoral)

• Industry development Primary Industries Ministerial Council Rural RD&E Framework (sectoral)Productivity Commission Review of Rural R&D Corporations

• InternationalCollaborative consideration with ACIAR, Austrade and others

• Peoplein prep, facilitated workshop with leaders of related initiatives

The adequacy of system planning in relation to BERD and the underpinning disciplines is still under review

Strategy drives structure

• Consideration of the institutional framework will follow

• This will include finalisation of principles for investment that take into account prosperity and security objectives

• It will also include the development of our performance measurement and reporting framework

• Based on this approach, we will draft a National Strategic Rural R&D Investment Plan for consideration by the Minister.

Package

Rural R&D Council

Anne StünznerBeth Woods

Bob RoseCathy McGowanFrances Shapter

Jim PratleyKate Grenot

Mark McHenryPenny Sackett

Rob Clark

Supported in 2009 by Bill Withers, Margaret Allen, Julie Austin, Kate Ross, Diane Heather,

Leanne Brown and Elizabeth Raynor

What should rural R&D investment look like? Kate Grenot Rural R&D Council Chair.

Documents

Transcript of What should rural R&D investment look like? Kate Grenot Rural R&D Council Chair.