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Partners in Innovation

Already in the twenty-first century, notable and seemingly accelerating changes are taking place in the agenda for agricultural R&D. Along with the ever-present concern for a more profitable, productive and sustainable agricultural sector, the agenda now includes greater emphasis on issues such as the environment, genetic diversity, food integrity, human health, the structure and diversity of agriculture and animal rights.

RIRDC has commitments across this range of subject matter. It is clear that both public and private sector research agencies are increasingly looking to partner-ships and wider collaborative ventures to address the larger spread of subject mat-ter. Effective collaboration can enhance research outcomes by:

• the potential to exploit greater synergies between researchers, funders and end users
• address the lack of critical mass and associated capital availability
• improving the level and effectiveness of research commercialisation and other R&D adoption and technology transfer pathways
• address the challenges of improved communications and liaison to achieve the dissemination and adoption of research outputs.

Collaborative ventures are increasingly being viewed as ‘through chain’ to link both farm and non-farm level research requirements.RIRDC has given enhanced attention to collaborative activity in 2003–04 both with the network of agricultural research and development corporations and more widely with other agricultural and non-agricultural institutions.

A new business plan has been developed with our partners in the collaborative venture on human capacity to secure future investments and new R&D funding alliances. A proposed new structure for the Joint Venture Agroforestry Program has also met with positive responses from a range of potential new
alliances. A proposed new structure for the Joint Venture Agroforestry Program has also met with positive responses partners.

RIRDC has also contributed directly to the funding and management of the Farm Health and Safety venture and has worked in partnership with the Managing Climate Variability program. Other close collaborative achieve-ments include the CRC for Sustainable Rice Production and the Australian Poultry CRC which have added to the critical mass and viability of research projects across these important industries.

Examples of RIRDC’s many suc-cessful partnerships and their out-comes are shown throughout this report, alongside the reports on the operations of each of the sub-pro-grams.
 
 
 
 
 

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