Education and Training
About the Education and Training Program
From the onset of the Austalian Seafood CRC, the Education and Training Program (Program 4) sought to be different to previous CRC’s connected with the seafood industry.
Cooperative Research Centres are certainly about higher education, but they are also just as significantly about industry training. This is why the Australian Seafood CRC's Education and Training Program is broken up in to two distinct themes:
Higher Education
Research training through a PhD and then through a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship is a recognised pathway for researchers intending on university and research careers. A first degree, and increasingly a PhD, provide a competitive advantage for employment in the seafood industry or in an allied organisation. The Seafood CRC PhD and Post-Doctoral Researcher programs were developed to contain significant industry components in order to build capacity in our sector and to provide individuals with stronger career pathways.
The Australian Seafood CRC is committed to funding 40 PhD projects over its seven years. About ten new PhD projects will commence each year over the first four years of the CRC. PhD projects will be funded in one of three ways: completely by the Education and Training Program, by the Education and Training Program as "top-ups" to other scholarships (such as an Australian Postgraduate Award) or directly by CRC projects. Our PhD projects are closely aligned with CRC projects in which industry endorse the topics and research focus.
The Seafood CRC also aims to recruit high-quality, dynamic Post-Doctoral Researchers in order to build Australia’s seafood industry research capacity at a senior level. It is vital to the outcomes of the CRC that Post-Doctoral Researchers produce high quality research that addresses industry needs. As such, our Post-Doctoral Researchers are relatively independent and tend to work across projects and sectors using their skills to both initiate their own research and to assist with other CRC projects.
A number of educational activities will be developed for PhD and Post-Doctoral Researchers over the life of the CRC such as specialised workshops, attendence at international conferences and other general personal development activities. In addition, PhD students have an assigned industry mentor in which the CRC provides financial support to ensure regular, meaningful interaction. A mentor also provides our students with a contextual understanding of how their research fits within a seafood industry environment.
Industry Training
Our industry training concept is aimed to strategically change the culture of the Seafood CRC industry participants’ uptake of our research and development.
Unfortunately, the majority of the Australian seafood industry is poorly qualified when it comes to training, the uptake of the seafood industry training package has been poor (despite the fact that the package is recognized around the world as a best practice training program) and much of the industry is a nil-entry level employer. This combination puts the seafood industry at a distinct disadvantage.
The Australian Seafood CRC aims to change this situation by making the seafood industry more professional, providing staff/employees with a range of training and personal development opportunities and encouraging our long serving, experienced and knowledgeable staff/personnel to mentor the next generation entering in to the industry.
Other focuses of the industry training section of our Education and Training Program are new opportunities in the vocational education and training sector (e.g. TAFE), training and education opportunities in the form of scholarships and bursaries (for national and international activities) and an annual program of professional development training seminars, workshops and forums.
back to top>
|
|
