What do we mean by Strategic?

The most important characteristic of SRFME is that it has been established to invest in and carry out "strategic" research rather than "applied" or "tactical" research.

Strategic research is the pursuit of new knowledge and understanding through original scientific endeavour, as opposed to "applied" research which uses existing knowledge to tackle a specific industry outcome or management problem or objective and "tactical" research which is the conduct of original research targeted at a specific industry outcome or management problem or objective.

By definition then strategic research outcomes tend to have broader application than tactical or applied research - for example; research which leads to an understanding of ocean current circulation patterns and how this influences seasonal and interannual variability in water temperature and transport distance/direction has potential importance for understanding fisheries recruitment and production, impacts of climate change, biodiversity maintenance, risks from invasions and oil spills. So strategic research delivers benefits down the track in both expected and unexpected ways.

Funding for truly strategic research is very difficult to obtain in Australia. These days most research agencies are finding they need to deploy their resources towards short term applied or tactical research driven either commercial needs or immediate management problems. While this means that the agencies and government achieve some short-term outcomes, they never move beyond a piecemeal understanding of the marine ecosystem and in particular how it functions and varies over time. This is what makes the approach taken by SRFME to invest in strategic research so important and quite unique.

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