Towards the increased policy relevance of fisheries research

Looks at how research might make a more effective contribution to policy development. Improvements could be made to prioritization mechanisms and to the linkages between research and policy. Consideration must be given to the role of the State in the financing and delivery of research. Research capacity must then be developed in an appropriate fashion. Some suggestions are also made as to how the performance of the research system itself might be improved. Precise research needs will depend on specific contexts and should flow from the prioritization mechanisms. However, some common problems where SIFAR research support would be useful are discussed, in particular the need for improved fishery management systems and the need to focus research at the correct objectives by distinguishing between goals and constraints.

On fisheries reserach it recommends:

• Due to the importance of economic surplus, it is suggested in this paper that both fishery policy and fishery research should be based around it. The contribution that can be expected from research can be measured in terms of economic surplus – research can help with its extraction or capitalisation, it can help to increase its potential and it can help to increase its sustainability.
• Research could also be used as a way of targeting particular beneficiaries, such as the poor, but research is a rather poor method of achieving non-efficiency objectives, and at the very least other methods of achieving the same result should be considered alongside research
• priority setting mechanisms need to be reconsidered (or implemented) to improve the allocation of public expenditure. Such mechanisms should focus on the economic surplus potential of different fisheries. In evaluating the expected pay-off to individual pieces of research, focus should again be placed on the expected (or potential) contribution to sustainable economic surplus. Researchers themselves need to be persuaded to evaluate their own research in these terms.
• some consideration needs to be given to the issue of pure curiosity-driven research (or basic research) since the focus on sustainable economic surplus may tend to favour short-term research with a more certain payoff. There will be a need therefore to assess the expected pay-off in terms of different risks associated with different projects
• there is a need to improve the interface between policy and research. Perhaps the most important element is to involve policy-makers more fully in the determination of priority setting. However, it would seem useful also to consider establishing a formal institutional arrangement to deal specifically with the interface problem: what have been called here "research liaison units".
• The issues of financing and delivery of research need to be separated. There are strong economic arguments in favour of public support for some research, based on its public good nature. However, arguments for public delivery of research tend to be rather weaker and appear to be based on a mixture of objectives. Careful consideration should be given to the issue of whether public or private, domestic or foreign research institutes should carry out different pieces of research. A related question is what kind of research capacity it is appropriate to develop.
• Consideration should also be given to improving the research system itself, including improving the performance of individual research institutes and enhancing co-ordination between their activities, and providing incentives for researchers which are consistent with the objectives of research funders and policy makers.

The paper concludes by discussing some key issues that appear of general relevance in determining research priorities and in linking research to policy:

• where possible, fishery management systems should be broadly-based, and in particular small-scale fisheries should be brought within the scope of a general management system rather than being considered as a special case.
• equity may be an important issue in the design of sustainable efficient management systems
• non-efficiency goals, such as gender, poverty and employment, should be addressed as constraints on the ability to achieve economic surplus, at least where research is concerned.