IRC Research Portfolio Assessment

Polaris has an ongoing involvement helping the MOD assess the return on its considerable annual investment in International Research Collaboration (IRC). We have undertaken a series of assessments over the past 3 years which look at the performance of the IRC portfolio, which includes hundreds of collaboration activities undertaken world-wide.

Central to our approach has been to apply our Perform™ methodology to develop a flexible performance measurement system which provides evidence to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each of the IRC activities, in terms of their technical and financial delivery. This has been done in close collaboration with the IRC team. The power of the system is that it also captures management, risk and political impact, to provide a properly balanced picture of what each activity is achieving.

As well as looking at individual activities, this approach also provides evidence that the portfolio as a whole is properly directed at the MOD's strategic policy drivers, and that investment is properly balanced against military need.

One of the strengths of the approach is that it delivers a range of outputs appropriate both for strategic decision makers and more detailed technical assessments. The MOD uses the results to demonstrate the value for money of the IRC portfolio, and to develop a real insight into how it is performing. More recently the same analysis framework has been used for deeper and more specialised investigations into specific areas at the request of Dstl Joint Systems and the Research Acquisition Organisation (RAO).