JTSI2223021 Methodology and Evaluation of Life Sciences Funding 2022 - 2026

The Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (JTSI) is the lead economic development state agency in Western Australia (WA). JTSI provides support in strategic state projects, investment and trade, tourism, and promotes the defence, international education, science and innovation sectors.

JTSI is responsible for implementing $8.65 million in funding, announced in the 2022 State Budget, to support the State’s first ever Health and Medical Life Sciences Industry Strategy (HMLS Strategy). JTSI is also responsible for providing leadership and reporting on the outcomes of the HMLS Strategy. The outcomes will need to consider the strategy deliverables allocated from the $8.65 million in funding and oversight of the Western Australian Life Sciences Innovation Hub (Hub).

Over four (4) years, (July 2022- June 2026) the HMLS Strategy will support innovation in health and medical life sciences, aiming to attract investors and establish manufacturing in WA to help grow this key sector outlined in the Diversify WA framework.

While JTSI does not govern or have oversight of all programs supporting the HMLS Strategy, coordination of the HMLS Strategy is overseen by the Life Sciences Team within JTSI. To ensure good governance, it is essential to evaluate the impact of the programs used to implement the HMLS Strategy; to ensure the best economic and social return for the State.

Previous program evaluation for other JTSI programs such as the New Industries Fund 2017-2021 have been conducted at the end of the term. This required evaluators to retrofit data sets that did not fully capture their required metrics for impact analysis, or worse, miss important metrics due to data collection oversight (i.e. data not thought to be collected during program delivery).

There is an opportunity, in alignment with the new funding announced in the 2022 budget for the HMLS Strategy to:

• establish program logic for the proposed funding activities;
• research and review required metrics needed to measure impact of the HMLS Strategy; and
• set framework and tools required to collect appropriate data points from first instigation of the programs.
  
  By setting these parameters at the beginning, it will enable a more robust assessment of the impact of the HMLS Strategy at future evaluation dates.
  
  JTSI is seeking a Supplier to setup program logic and methodologies to measure the effectiveness of the Hub and the $8.65 million funding allocated across programs and policies.