China is a significant market for end user participants within the Seafood CRC and one where significant investment is already directed (ACA China project). China is a rapidly growing and rapidly changing market providing many challenges to Australian's wishing to develop a sustainable business relationship. The traditional supply routes to China are changing as are the consumer desires and buying patterns.

There is a need to develop both a research capacity and an industry skill base to enable the rapidly emerging opportunities for Australian seafood exports to China to be realised. This project proposes a China field trip involing high calibre final year international business students and CRC industry members who are or have the capacity to export ot China. The field trip will be complemented by a formal education framework to enable both a commercial and academic perspective to be taken. The team as a whole (industry participants and students research team) should gain a greater awareness of the role and significance of the Chinese Seafood industry specific to the Australian seafood industry. The market field research will provide industry participants and students with the ability to compare and contrast markets (Australia and China) and to prepare actionable interpretive reports based on research findings. Furthermore, industry and students will attain an appreciation of a foreign culture as well as an awareness of cross cultural influence on business relevant to the seafood industry.

The academic research team has already gained insight from the South Korean pilot field trip and are now in a more informed position to map and plan the strategy for this proposed field trip that will better assist Seafood CRC members and provide students with a more holistic workplace integrated learning experience. .

Determining links between spawning dynamics, as well as the early life history, of small pelagic fishes and oceanographic processes off south-eastern Australia is needed to strengthen the understanding of stock structure, basic biology, and the impacts of various environmental influences on the target species in the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery. Little information is known about bio-physical links in this region, despite studies worldwide showing that oceanographic processes play a critical role in determining recruitment success of small pelagics and influence population dynamics as a whole. Furthermore, global climate change models predict that a strengthening of the East Australian Current (EAC), the largest influence on marine ecosystems in south-eastern Australia, will result in the region being most vulnerable to climate change. As a result, it is essential to understand how EAC dynamics influence small-pelagic fish stocks before any predictions of the influence of climate change can be made.

The opportunity exists to further explore data acquired during a previous ichthyoplankton study to establish links between the early life history stages of small pelagic fishes and ocean currents off south-eastern Australia. However, to fully develop hypotheses on such linkages, it is vital to obtain the latest information on large scale marine systems, ecological models and theories regarding transport, advection, dispersal and retention processes. Such opportunity to gather such information exists with a workshop and conference dedicated to connectivity in marine fish populations in July 2009. Attendance at this workshop would be highly beneficial in discussing and developing theories and hypothesis regarding links between the early life history of small pelagic fishes and oceanographic processes, as well as predicting possible effects of imminent climate change within south-eastern Australia.