Research funding globally is become increasingly competitive with the number of researchers/organisations vying for limited government grant funding increasing each year. Research institutions need to find new sources of research funding.
In Australia, a relatively untapped source of funding is industry. In research terms, industry comprises multiple areas including public companies, private companies, not for profits, charities along with a variety of other organisation types.
The Decision Tool Project aims to build a training and constant learning model that uses basic behavioural economics in terms that researchers can provide input about their research to and translate that into a series of actions and communications that potential industry partners will understand and respond positively to. As each researcher’s experience is documented in the Decision Tool, a background statistical analysis is planned in order to identify trends, both positive and negative, in terms of the actions and their outcomes in order to change future suggestions/recommendations to researchers seeking funding and thus provide a “learning system” for gaining research funding.
After a series of consultation sessions with research personnel from various research providers, a base set of process/script requirements have been generated for use in an initial Research Funding Decision Tool System (DTS).