The Strategic Policy and Industry Insights (SPII) Unit encompasses areas including marketplace, policy and research.

Through marketplace, the unit tracks deals and sales throughout a project’s life cycle and provides market intelligence to the agency and wider industry.

Through policy and research, the SPII Unit supports the industry with the latest data, analysis and insights into the evolving screen production environment. This data is also used for industry events, media releases, stories on the agency’s online publication Screen News including Intel pieces, and throughout Screen Australia’s public database The Screen Guide.

The SPII Unit produced a number of significant reports in 2018/19 including:

• October 2018 – The annual Drama Report showed $814 million in total Australian drama expenditure, including a record spend on Australian productions and a record spend on online drama.
• June 2019 – Working with the Communications Unit, the monthly Upcoming Production Report was upgraded to an interactive format. The new search engine allows industry to browse Australian and foreign drama and documentary titles that are in pre-production,
  production or post-production in Australia.
  ​Palm Beach​
  ​The SPII Unit also maintains the Fact Finders section of the Screen Australia website, which provides a wide range of free information including:
• Comprehensive statistics on the production and release of local and foreign feature films, TV drama, documentary and other screen content in Australia
• Data on Australian movies, drama and documentaries that have featured in international festivals and won awards at key overseas events
• Historical statistics on drama and documentaries from Indigenous filmmakers
• Results of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) the Film, Television and Digital Games Survey.

​​During 2018/19, the SPII Unit’s Research Helpdesk provided bespoke information about the screen industry to students, academics, researchers, film and television industry practitioners, government, and the media and publishing industries. Research enquiries from Australia and overseas have ranged from queries about documentary production trends and feature filmmaker employment statistics, to SVOD and broadcast television audience data and the viewing habits of the over 50s.

The SPII Unit assisted other units in Screen Australia to develop, evaluate and revise policy settings, including the Indigenous Department’s new Strategic Plan, The Next 25 Years, released in July 2019 and the forthcoming review of Documentary funding programs scheduled for September 2019.

Little Monsters