There is a relatively small number of universities, education and training providers offering programs in the fishing and aquaculture industries. There is an absence of consolidated data on, for example who they are, how active they are, the programs they offer, and course participant commencements and completions. The extent to which these providers keep abreast of the latest R&D outcomes, how and where they access information on R&D outcomes and the degree to which the content of their training/education programs include the latest research outcomes is not known.

Understanding the current state of play in the provision and uptake of industry-related training programs will provide valuable information that can be used by FRDC and the fishing and aquaculture industries to make more informed decisions on how to most effectively ensure new R&D outcomes are accessed and used in current course content at universities and in vocational education and training. This could be, for example by developing incentives and close working partnerships with a cadre of active training providers best positioned to include both new industry practices, procedures, etc and the required underpinning knowledge in their training programs.

Due to the time and cost involved in updating course materials there is a limit to the extent well established training and education programs can be continually updated to include the latest R&D outcomes.
A related project activity therefore is to confirm with the industries their most critical and emerging jobs and functions and marry these to the most recent R&D outcomes. These are considered to be of the highest priority for inclusion in some capacity in training and education programs.