The Atlantic salmon industry needs to address a number of biological constraints and socio-economic issues through a coordinated research effort to ensure sustainability, profitability and to develop to its full potential. In particular, research is required that addresses issues of immediate concern while acknowledging that some projects require long-term timeframes. There is therefore a need to promote a strategic plan and to develop collaborative research projects that address industry bottlenecks and avoid duplication and unnecessary expenditure of a finite research funding base.
The ASAS delivers a mechanism for the required collaboration while efficiently addressing strategic research priorities identified by industry and management.
The ASAS Aquaculture Implementation Committees are also a fundamental management instrument of the Aquafin CRC, providing a vehicle through which the objectives of both the FRDC and Aquafin CRC are realised.

Statistics on Australian fisheries production, gross value of production (GVP) and trade is required to meet a wide range of demands.

First: To assist in making investment decisions and planning of marketing strategies.

Second: To provide the basis for setting of research priorities by fisheries managers, industry and research organisations and the selection of a research portfolio by funding agencies. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry through ABARE, contributes to a number of international databases including databases managed by the FAO and OECD. Information at the international level can be important in relation to international negotiations on issues such as transboundary fisheries, in analysing trade opportunities and threats and is essential for participating in fora such as APEC and WTO.

Third: The gross value of production for specific fisheries are used for determining research and development levies for the FRDC and for determining industry contributions to research. Because the estimates form the basis for research levies for each fishery, it is important for the system to be independent from those involved in the management and marketing processes to ensure neutrality and integrity of the estimates.

As identified at the meeting in late October 2009, between ABARE and industry stake holders, there is also a need for other economic data that is not currently incorporated in the AFS. In particular there is a need to ensure that the method used to estimate GVP in each jurisdiction is robust and consistently applied. To meet this need, this project incorporates an audit component, to commence in 2010-11, to assess the extent to which the method used to calculate GVP is robust and consistent across jurisdictions, and to determine the fishery related data sets that currently exist across jurusdictions.

There have been significant resources (financial and physical) allocated to workplace health and safety (including mental health, training and systems for data collection) over the last 15 years in the commercial fishing industry .However the majority have been “stand alone" and there has been limited extension for the wider industry to adopt. Although there have been some positive moves in the area of health and safety such as the SRL Clean Green program and the Spencer Gulf Prawn fishery, there has largely been a “silo” approach to the various initiatives across the commercial fishing industry and a real lack of coordination that can lead to a lack of communication, adoption and the lack of visibility of tools to those that need it. This is due in part to the nature of the industry that tends (overall) not to have the willingness to adopt something that another fishery has implemented, fragmentation of industry in some states and within a fishery. Additionally, the absence of a peak national body until June 2017 also created a gap for driving nationwide issues including workplace safety and health initiatives. Through the building of these networks and the establishment of on the ground champion in each state to influence industry including the building of capacity/ resources within the peak bodies to embrace workplace health and safety on behalf of their members, improved awareness and adoption of safety programs should occur. To do this State peak bodies require support to enable them to add value for their members and therefore utilise existing and currently funded research and develop extension processes.It is unknown to what level industry uptake of the current AMSA requirements for a safety management system (SMS) has occurred. It is not well understood by industry that the existence of a SMS to meet AMSA requirements only goes half way for legal compliance. Each states Worksafe body also has legislation that requires compliance with safe work practices. It is desirable to produce a SMS that meets both sets of legislation and develop a tool that can be used to assess the uptake of the initiatives through the peak bodies as well as developing a robust set of statistics to benchmark the performance.