Strategic Plan 2003-07

CSIRO’s rich history shapes our future direction. The organisation’s vision, mission and core beliefs have been built up over the last 77 years and flow through everything we do. At the same time, in response to some important changes in our environment, we have embarked upon a new era at CSIRO. Only our unrelenting focus on improving the quality of our science and the impact of our outputs will ensure our relevance for years to come. We are reinventing ourselves as a research enterprise with global reach.

We demand of ourselves science excellence, business excellence and operational excellence. We have agreed upon the key change messages that will help us get there. We recognise, however, that real change does not happen quickly.

The next decade of change for CSIRO will take place within this broader context. From 2000 to 2012, CSIRO will have four distinct strategic episodes. Each episode will be represented in a strategic plan consistent with the broader journey upon which we are embarked. Each strategic plan sets our goals, strategic objectives, targets and performance metrics for a two- to four-year period. The strategic plans, in turn, pave the way and provide very clear objectives that are the foundations for developing our annual operational plans.

Our annual operational plans will spell out the initiatives and activities for the coming year. The operational plans contain budgets, initiatives, annual performance targets and reporting groups that focus our activities for the year. These activities are designed to push forward the strategic goals and objectives that appear in our strategic plan. Thus, the strategic plan provides the organisation with direction and a sense of accountability that are detailed in annual operational plans. The operational plans explain what we will do each year to execute on these and bring us closer to achieving our strategic goals.

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• CSIRO Strategic Plan 2003-07 [PDF 1MB]