The potential role of benefit-cost techniques in the evaluation of project proposals and the selection of a fisheries research portfolio is examined in this report. Lack of information about the value of all the benefits and costs expected from fisheries research means that a precise benefit-cost assessment of fisheries research proposals is unlikely to be possible. It is concluded that in any evaluation of research, a range of types of assessments may be necessary, depending on the information available.

 

The focus in this report is on the practicalities of quantifying the expected benefits and costs of proposed research. The simplifications and approxi­mation that may be needed to estimate expected payoffs of proposed research are identified. Six case studies are used as illustrations.

 

The factors which affect the expected benefits and costs of fisheries research may be considered to fall into two categories:

- those that determine the maximum possible size and value of the expected benefits and costs to society from a research project (termed the 'attractiveness' of the research); and

- those that determine the likelihood of those research benefits being realised and maintained (termed the 'feasibility' of the research).

 

To assist in maintaining consistency in assessment, research attractiveness could first be estimated by assuming complete research feasibility and that each research proposal contributes 100 per cent of the expected research benefits (as opposed to contributing less than 100 per cent when a project constitutes only one part of many research projects necessary to achieve the expected benefits).

 

Complete research feasibility assumes total research success, total adoption of results, a management structure which allows the resource rents and/or conservation benefits to be maximised, and the absence of international competition so that benefits are not leaked. Subsequently judgments about the likelihood of these factors could then be used to temper those expectations, depending on how realistic these assumptions for feasibility are.

 

Research may need to be qualitatively assessed due to lack of complete fisheries data. Project evaluation thus remains subjective to some extent. While the benefit-cost approach to evaluating research pro­posals may need to be significantly modified to deal with such gaps, it provides funding agencies with a systematic framework for scrutinising and evalu­ating research proposals.

 

At best, benefit-cost analysis could be used to provide an indication of the net returns to fisheries projects; at worst it could provide a basis for formalising the process of research assessment, ensuring that the factors likely to affect the benefits and costs of research proposals are explicitly considered.

 

However, choosing a research portfolio is likely to be difficult when a variety of market measures, non­market measures and judgments have been used in evaluating different projects. The comparison of research projects is also likely to be difficult where different assumptions and simplifications have been used to evaluate different proposals.