One of the world's best-known climate contrarians, Bjorn Lomborg, will establish a base in Perth as his influence in Australia grows.

The controversial Dane has struck a four-year deal with the University of Western Australia to run a policy research centre in its business school, which will focus on the nation's future prosperity.

Dr Lomborg said he planned to spend a "significant amount of time" in Australia following his appointment this month as one of the Abbott government's advisers on foreign aid.

That appointment was criticised sharply by the Labor opposition and environmental activists, who questioned why someone who played down the effects of global warming should be advising on Pacific Island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Dr Lomborg acknowledged on Wednesday his work had divided audiences but said he would continue to offer "rational advice on the best way to prioritise public spending".

"Australian politics seems very dichotomous, which is not a good thing if you want people to look ahead and find common solutions," he said.

"But this is not a right or a left-wing project. We'll inevitably annoy people who support some left-wing pet ideas as well as those who hold onto some right-wing ideas."

Dr Lomborg is best known for his books The Skeptical Environmentalist and its follow-up volume Cool it, which were criticised by climate scientists for underplaying the rate of global warming.

More recently, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre he founded has studied international development issues. His trademark approach is to use cost-benefit analyses to tell governments which projects produce the most social value per dollar spent.

His latest work, The Smartest Targets for the World, says, for example, that establishing free trade, ending overfishing or fossil fuel subsidies, or eliminating malaria, tuberculosis or child malnutrition represent "phenomonal" value for money. However, encouraging sustainable tourism or reducing child marriages or drug abuse are relatively wasteful uses of aid funds.

Dr Lomborg said his Perth-based Australia Concensus Centre would allow him to apply his economic modelling "to a rich country for the first time".

He said that, as with most Western nations, policy discussions in Australia tended to focus on the few years of the election cycle.

"We're going to look at long-term issues and their consequences: pension reform, infrastructure spending, what we should do with the environment, schooling, immigration and so on. Hopefully, our research will create helpful information for policymarkers.

"But, in the end, economists are not who'll decide what happens in Australia or the world: we're just putting the prices of the different options on the menu."

The university's vice-chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson, said Dr Lomborg's centre "will become the go-to place for useful economic research to inform the national and international debate".