Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) research programme 2022-2027: mid-programme review report

4. Strategic Research Programme Deliverability

The deliverability assessment of the research projects within the Strategic Research Programme identified the following findings (data on projects can be found in Annex A).

Overall, most projects are delivering at an acceptable risk level, however some projects (12, 10%) have met the delivery risk trigger points and must be monitored to ensure risk does not grow to an unacceptable level.

Three projects met Trigger 1 and have been identified as “not on track” to deliver key milestones in 2023-24 Quarter 2 reporting period:

• Out of the three projects, one has agreed milestone changes and is considered to be an acceptable delay to delivery.
• However, two have not formally signalled to SG that they are not on track through our regular reporting/change processes. This indicates a risk to deliverability due to lack of transparency.

Nine projects met Trigger 2 and had two or more substantial changes during the first 18 months of the project:

• Changes to a project can be suggested for positive reasons such as to better align project scope and/or seek efficiencies. As such the triggers are only an indication of significant movement in a project and provide a warning for potential future impact to a project’s success.
• Out of the nine projects, only two are considered to hold a risk to delivery due to the types of changes indicating continued missed milestones.
• Where projects have made substantial changes to milestone delivery, all planned mitigation of potential impact risk has been accepted by the RESAS Topic Lead.

One project falls into both Trigger 1 & 2 and has been identified as ‘not on track” in 2023- 24 Quarter 2 reporting period and had two substantial changes in the first 18 months of the project:

• This project has two milestone delivery delays which have been approved due to staffing problems. However, this project has not formally signalled to SG it is not on track through our regular reporting processes. This indicates a risk to deliverability due to lack of transparency.

The project risks can be summarised in the table above. Projects which meet a delivery risk trigger point should be considered an ongoing delivery risk. RESAS Topic Lead and RESAS PMO should undertake further consultation to evaluate project delivery against original research questions, and proposed timescales to ensure the project is still able to meet sought after requirements.