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Summary of full report
Evaluation of the New Plant Products Program
An overview of all projects — Stage 1
by Henry Cutler and Dr Jenny Gordon
November 2004
RIRDC Publication No 04/162
This report provides an overview of all projects completed or currently in progress in prospective new plants. The purpose is to: provide a reference source summarising the projects by classifying them by key objectives and outputs and demonstrating the links between the projects; and make an initial assessment of the likely outcome of each project, or set of projects, as input into decisions on future project development and selection.
This review covers 258 projects that have been undertaken in the New Plants Program in the past 15 years. Total funding for projects completed and currently under way is approximately $54.8 million of which RIRDC has contributed about $18.9 million, or 34 per cent. The funding for the programs is summarised in table 1.
Table 1 Funding for New Plants R&D
The classification
system used was a generic structure that has previously been used for other
projects in the RIRDC portfolio. Given the nature of the portfolio, a relatively
high share of funds were used in the production stage. Industry development
and training was also allocated a significantly large proportion of total
funding. Table 2 outlines the funds used in each classification.
Projects were also segregated into three production stages. In brief, stage one projects are in the identification phase, stage two projects in the development stage, and stage three in the extension stage. Due to the relatively small industry size for new plants, the largest proportion of funding was used in the development stage. However, the identification phase also received approximately one third of total funding. Although a requirement for a clear extension or commercialisation pathway, the extension phase received a relatively small proportion of funding. However, the potential for the extension phase to receive more funding in the future has increased. This is because projects receiving funding since 2001 have been required to include a clear extension or commercialisation pathway built into them. The share of funding by stages of development is outlined in table 3.
Initial assessment
Assessments of the value
of project outcomes to the relevant industry or the Australian public were
provided by the program managers — Dr David Evans for projects before June
2000 and Max Bourke for projects after June 2000 to the present. Re-assessments
for projects completed before June 2000 were also undertaken by Max Bourke.
Their efforts are greatly appreciated as considerable diversity of products
under the program made this task a challenge, and the small size of the
industries and different stages of development made estimation of impacts
complex.
There was general satisfaction with many of the projects undertaken, with approximately 49.6 per cent of projects having either a medium or high impact on industries or consumers. For a substantial number of projects, it was considered too early to make any assessment as these projects have either just finished or are still in progress. Furthermore, many project impacts were unknown, either because the impacts could not be readily estimated due to the nature of the industry and the type of project, or the project itself was unknown to the program managers. Table 4 outlines funding levels for each level of impact.
Over the past 15 years there has been a wide variety of projects undertaken in new plants. Some of these have directly lead to industry growth and a subsequent shift to another research and development corporations (RDC) — mainly Horticulture Australia — while others have struggled to overcome unforeseen barriers to industry development.
Five sets of projects were
selected for further assessment and formal analysis in stage two of this
report. While difficult to evaluate due to limited information on industry
size and trends, and the direct impacts of the projects, a formal assessment
will be useful for evaluating current RIRDC project approval processes
and subsequent outcomes.
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