Page 80 - AERC Strategic Plan 2 July2020

THE AERC 2020–2025 STRATEGIC PLAN

Intermediate Outcomes

Intermediate outcomes are the short-to-medium term outcomes the AERC needs to
produce in order to achieve the end-of-strategy outcomes. These would be expected
to be achieved within a year to two years. These do not need to be achieved in a linear
fashion but demonstrable progress towards them must be evident within two years. The
ME system has been designed to track progress against these intermediate outcomes.
There are two intermediate outcomes within this outcome pathway:

3.3. Enhanced platforms for cooperation and information sharing; and
3.4. Improved strategic communication capability.

In order to improve cooperation and information sharing, the AERC needs to sustainably
build platforms that facilitate such cooperation. Platforms include policy advisory and
knowledge centres; networks; information sharing fora (such as conventions, seminars
and workshops); and training programmes that can provide an ongoing location for
cooperation and information sharing on economic policy. Several such platforms
already exist but these do not sufficiently meet the needs of economic-policy decision-
makers and influencers. The AERC will develop a range of new and innovative platforms
to provide think tanks and decision-makers with timely and customised support that is
more likely to influence policy decision-making. These platforms will also be a locus for
creativity and knowledge generation as they will bring together a wide range of actors
with different ideas on policy – particularly if the ‘under-representation’ intermediate
outcome in the organizational domain is achieved.

This is a new area for the AERC and one that presents several risks. There is a risk that think
tanks may not engage with these platforms, as they may see them as duplicative or as
something that erodes the think tanks’ own influence. This is a key issue. The AERC needs
to work closely with think tanks and other influencers to understand their institutional
context and to develop platforms that incentivise their participation and ‘institutional
value addition’. There is also a risk that national agencies may not participate in such
platforms as they may see them as irrelevant or consider the economic policy advice and
research outputs to be of a low quality. This further demonstrates the importance of the
‘research and graduate training domain’ and the need to ensure that AERC-supported
outputs are of the highest possible quality. There is also a risk that think tanks and
other influencing partners may produce economic policy research and advice that is of
a low quality. This may have a negative impact on the AERC’s reputation, as the AERC is
facilitating such influence through its platforms. This suggests that there is a role for the
AERC to play in filtering out low quality outputs through such platforms. There is a further
risk that the AERC will not be able to sustainably fund such platforms as they will require
funding by ongoing partners. The link between this and the ‘organizational’ domain is
obvious. An incremental approach is needed to building new platforms to ensure they are
financially viable.

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