Value added — modelling the marginal return on investment within and across pathways

Pest introduction pathways – growing in volume, diversity and complexity — threaten Australia’s biosecurity system. The increasing risk this poses is outpacing investment and technological developments. The department has sought to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of biosecurity by identifying which ‘low-return’ activities can be deemphasised to release resources for more valuable actions. Biosecurity agencies need a transparent and repeatable risk-return based process for allocating resources for individual interventions in their day-to-day operations.

Building on the CEBRA-developed Value model that calculates the return on investment for the biosecurity system as a whole, this project seeks to develop a model for comparing the relative costs and benefits of different intervention levels. Fully implemented, this project and its outputs have the potential to transform the department’s approach to allocating resources and significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness.

CEBRA Project Leader: Andrew Robinson