The purpose of the economic evaluation reported in this paper was to determine the potential benefits of the Cotton CRC's scientific research to the Australian cotton industry. It was considered that the main effect of the Cotton CRC's research was to increase the scale and intensity of research and to expedite the delivery of new technologies to the cotton industry through the provision of additional research funding and by reinforcing the collaborative links that exist among Australian cotton research institutions. Estimates are made of the potential benefits to the Cotton CRCs five main scientific programs (diseases, insects, soils, water and weeds) and the entire Cotton CRC using well-recognised economic modelling methods that have been adopted in recent economic evaluations of other agricultural CRCs and of the large scale research programs supported by the Australian Government. The results of this evaluation indicate that the Cotton CRC could generate significant economic benefits to the Australian cotton industry where its research programs lead to increases in industry productivity by promoting faster rates and higher levels of new technology adoption. Evaluating the cotton CRC as a full entity generates maximum estimated potential economic benefits with a NPV of $1,067.2 million and a BCR of 7.8:I, yielding a marginal or incremental benefit (the difference between the NPV estimates for the with- and without- Cotton CRC scenarios) of $1,070. I million and an incremental BCR 6.8:I. Sensitivity-testing of key assumptions indicated that the results are the most sensitive to the assumptions regarding industry productivity growth, adoption ceiling and lag values. The overall result of the sensitivity analysis is that the positive benefit-cost outcomes of this evaluation of the Cotton CRC remain robust despite the large reductions in NPV and BCR values that can result from using parameter value assumptions that are significantly lower than those used in the base evaluation.