Rural research, development and extension (RD&E) has been a significant contributor to making Australia’s agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries into what they are today—world-leading, productive and innovative industries.

The Australian rural sector includes a diverse range of industries, which largely comprise small family businesses. The incentive and capacity for individual small businesses to invest in RD&E is low, resulting in potential under-investment in RD&E in the rural sector. The government helps rural industries overcome this by providing rural producers with a means of investing collectively in RD&E to benefit their industry and wider community. This is done through the rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs)—a partnership between government and industry in priority setting and funding.

CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) are required to show how their work contributes to development outcomes such as changes in policies.  While better evidence has the potential to improve decision-making, it is insufficient for achieving policy impacts. That evidence needs to be communicated effectively so that it is useful to targeted decision-makers, and decision-makers need to have the incentives and the capacity to use it.  This requires that researchers and their partners understand how policy processes work and how they can be influenced. Deliberate strategies to influence policy can also be the basis for assessing the extent to which research has contributed to a change in a policy or in the policy process—for example by influencing the discourse, attitudes, behaviors or actions of decision-makers.