Current Plan

This is the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation’s strategic plan for research and development (R&D) relating to the fishing industry. As the principal source of information about the FRDC’s policies, programs and operations, the plan:

• describes the FRDC;
•  defines its business environment;
• lays down, against the business environment, the FRDC’s planned outcomes for the period 2005 to 2010; and
• outlines the framework for R&D investment that will address national strategic challenges and priorities, and contribute to achieving its planned outcomes.

In doing so, the plan fulfils the requirements for an R&D plan that is prepared under the provisions of section 19 of the FRDC’s enabling legislation, the Primary Industries and Energy Research and Development Act 1989 (the PIERD Act). However, the plan’s scope takes it well beyond those requirements. For example, it takes account of important changes to the FRDC’s business environment envisaged during the next 20 years.

The R&D Plan is available in hard copy by contacting the FRDC; or electronically for download.

A Five Year Plan; A twenty Year Vision

The R&D plan takes account of forecast changes to the FRDC’s business environment during the next 20 years, driven by the need for the FRDC to be responsive to long-term changes on a wide front.

A century ago, the combined impact of humans on the global environment was small compared to the natural resource base. This is no longer the case. Globally, economic decision-making is based on processes that are not equipped to deal with relentless long-term impacts of population growth on water, land, air, biological diversity and other natural resources.

Economic decision-making is based on cycles that usually operate in periods of three to eight years. Consequently, many decisions are taken that do not reflect the long-term requirements of the population, producing results such as over-harvested fisheries, dryland salinity in inland waterways, and deteriorating estuarine and coastal waters. The time periods for responding to or mitigating the effects of these problems, which have become apparent only after significant periods of poor management, are often substantial — sometimes extending into hundreds of years.

Given the increasing speed with which the human population is closing the gap between under-utilisation and over-exploitation of the resource capital base, the timeframe for decision-making must be modified. It is easy to set a plan for three or five years, then make another plan for a similar time period and feel comfortable that the plan has been implemented. However, such short-term plans are likely to produce mediocre results in comparison to long-term needs. Strategic planning must be based on time periods that are as long as is possible to predict with reasonable certainty.

The FRDC has therefore evaluated the long-term requirements for Research and Development (R&D) to support a profitable, competitive, resilient and sustainable Australian fishing industry. It has done so by taking a 20-year view of the future.

Making long-term forecasts is fraught with difficulty. Significant developments in the course of world events are often triggered by factors that, individually, may be minor. It is the combination of these triggers that is almost always unforeseeable. Consequently, detailed scenarios of the future usually prove to be wrong. Planning should not therefore be concerned with describing such scenarios but with identifying specific factors that are likely to be important in future. Such identification is a continual process for the FRDC.

At the same time as it takes a 20-year perspective in framing its vision and strategic challenges, the Corporation adopts a 5-year perspective for its detailed planning. While recognising the practical limits to the funds available for fisheries R&D, the FRDC constantly seeks to expand its investment and to maximise returns on behalf of the industry and the Australian people.