2009/702 Seafood Success: Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program - Seafood CRC Professional Diploma

By Meredith Lawley

One of the original aims of the Seafood CRC was to create opportunities for industry (especially) and research participants to expand their knowledge and to encourage further education opportunities. To enable individuals to take innovative concepts right through to a business plan via an educational process that expanded their horizons with regards to what could be achieved would be ground breaking.

Very few ideas are turned into commercial successes. A great many of them have potential, and significant investment is usually directed to overcoming any technical issues that may be encountered. The resulting innovations still need to be commercialised. It is this commercialisation process that can make the difference between an innovation succeeding or failing. There are a number of tools and techniques that can be learned that will increase the chance that an innovation can become a commercial reality therefore a program focusing on the commercialisation process was required.

The program was delivered in two main formats, an eight month program over eight weekends (producing a business plan) and a four day program focussing more broadly on developing management and decision making skills. The eight month version attracted a smaller more narrowly focussed group of attendees but resulted in slightly higher outcomes in terms of overall satisfaction, impact and stronger ongoing networks, while the shorter version had broader appeal, attracted more attendees and still resulted in high levels of satisfaction and impact (but not as strong ongoing networks).