Prioritising Investment Opportunities in Research and Development Using Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis

We demonstrate how multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is applied to assist prioritisation of investment in research and development programs. We investigate a case study of research programs prioritisation towards the Renewable Energy Powerhouse Mission by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. The data for MCDA was collected through a targeted survey, that reached over 200 internal and external stakeholders and received 53 responses. The results of MCDA demonstrate that the top alternative that outperformed others is focused on the direct routes to metals and chemicals. The second leader promotes the development of the natural graphite-to-anode industry, followed by revolutionizing the economics of battery recycling. The paper discusses the implementation of MCDA process in a cross-disciplinary area with multiple collaborators and interested parties, and when the results are highly uncertain. The results of this study fed into a re-articulation of the upcoming Mission strategy in a series of events in the first several months of 2021, which resulted in management endorsement of the new strategy and allocations of funding.