AES 2015 International Evaluation Conference

Jan Paul van Moort (ACIL Allen Consulting), Tim Lester (Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations)

Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs) are a government-industry co-investment model, unique to Australia's rural innovation system. The RDCs generate a plethora of performance information covering policy rationale, governance, operational performance, stakeholder engagement, and the public and private impacts of research, development and technology transfer activities. But there remains concerns within government and industry about the quality of the information produced, how evaluation processes should evolve and what they should encompass. Complicating the picture, the RDCs work within and leverage off a broader system involving multiple industry sectors, service providers and government jurisdictions.
 
All RDCs develop multi-year strategic plans and report progress annually to stakeholders. Independent performance reviews have been progressively introduced to deepen performance evaluation of individual RDCs. These are informed by finer-scale impact evaluations that also contribute to an across RDC benefit-cost analysis time series. There have also been numerous Government inquires including a 2010 Productivity Commission RDC review and current Senate inquiry into levies which fund RDCs. 

This paper reviews these different approaches to assess how well they evaluate RDC performance and identify improvements to better answer industry and government questions.  We map evaluation purpose and methods over time, key evolutionary steps of the RDC model and assess implementation of recommendations. A SWOT analysis informs future challenges and opportunities.  

The review found RDC evaluation has generated significant insight into drivers of performance and impact. But the sheer volume and disconnected nature of evaluations makes it hard for stakeholders to access, understand and use results, leading to more evaluations. Significant gaps remain, particularly around investment rationale and impact across the whole model and the broader rural innovation system. Improvements around purpose, governance, duplication, methodology and packaging of results are required for RDC evaluation to move beyond a defensive strategy and to providing strategic insights on investments and evolution.