In 2018, ACIL Allen were commissioned by CSIRO to conduct an assessment of the impact and value delivered to the economy and the innovation system by the public investment in CSIRO. The report quantified the benefits of 20 impact case studies of research projects, on a net present-value basis as assessed at the current state of the research projects. It estimated the present dollar equivalent value of the projects' social, economic, health and environmental impacts at $1.25 billion per year. This result builds on the assessment from 2017, which examined 22 case studies in a similar fashion, estimating that CSIRO was delivering the equivalent of more than $3.2 billion per year in impact to the nation from those projects. Based on the 42 externally validated case studies, it can be extrapolated that the total benefits from CSIRO’s research would exceed $9 billion per year. This suggests that the full CSIRO research portfolio is providing a return of over 6:1.
