Designed through extensive stakeholder collaboration, FRDC’s new RD&E Plan provides a clear pathway to support sustainability, champion innovation and cultivate resilience across Australia’s pivotal fishing and aquaculture sectors.

At the heart of the Plan is a bold vision: delivering impact through collaboration.

The FRDC RD&E Plan 2025–30: Delivering Impact through Collaboration ensures fishing and aquaculture sectors have the tools to thrive through effectively balancing an everchanging landscape where environmental pressures are increasing; demand for seafood is soaring; changing community sentiment and greater market competition.

Five key themes to drive tangible change

The FRDC RD&E Plan 2025–30: Delivering Impact through Collaboration is built on five key themes identified through sector-wide consultations:

1. Growing, resilient and innovative
Australian aquatic resources provide a rich diversity of value to the community. The fishing and aquaculture sectors provides food and nutrition security, creates products and markets, preserves and enriches culture, and creates recreational experiences and services. To facilitate growing, resilient and innovative fishing and aquaculture sectors, FRDC will explore opportunities to invest and collaborate on RD&E to:

• Support economic opportunities for Indigenous people
• Optimise resource benefits to grow commercial opportunities, meet global consumption demands and gain recognition as a market leader
• Support a sustainable and efficient increase in production, value and price
• Grow positive recreational fishing experiences
• Develop new, innovative products and services that respond to current and future challenges

2. Best practices and production systems
Responsible practices and evidence-based decision-making are essential to ensure continued access to aquatic resources, enterprise profitability and ecosystem health. Collective success can be achieved when fishing and aquaculture sectors align on shared values of viability, adaptability, equity, ethics and sustainability.

To support economic, ecological and social benefits from best practice aquatic resource use, FRDC will explore opportunities to invest and collaborate on RD&E to:

• Meet environmental, social and governance requirements and expectations
• Respond to change, manage and reduce risks including climate change and biosecurity
• Promote learning and sharing among sectors and incorporate Indigenous knowledge

3. Capable and diverse people
Skilled and adaptable people in productions, supply chains, recreation, research and management are essential to the growth and resilience of fishing and aquaculture in Australia, especially in the face of constant change.
To promote diversity, grow participation, and develop skilled and adaptable people for fishing and aquaculture, FRDC will explore opportunities to invest and collaborate on RD&E to:

• Understand and address factors impacting positive cultural and behavioural change
• Enjoy physical and mental safety and wellbeing
• Attract and include a diversity of people
• Grow skills, creativity, collaboration and entrepreneurship

4. Secure access and resource allocation
Access to aquatic resources, guided by good management and science, is fundamental for the continued delivery of economic and social benefits such as food and nutrition, income, employment, recreation and cultural identity for all Australians. The need for coordinated, adaptive management has been undermined by climate change, as aquatic species and habitats shift their ranges, often crossing jurisdictional borders.

To ensure fair and integrated management of aquatic resources, FRDC will explore opportunities to invest and collaborate on RD&E to:

• Support integrated and effective management of and access to, aquatic resources underpinned by evidence-based decisions
• Share and obtain data easily and securely
• Enable operations in shared multi-use spaces
• Support future-fit management in emerging fisheries and aquaculture

5. Community trust, acceptance and value
Community support is essential for the maintenance and growth of fishing and aquaculture sectors. 

Demonstrating alignment with community values and delivering mutual benefits is key to maintaining social license to operate and building increased value and use of products, common services and experiences. To ensure that people share, use and feel positive about fishing and aquaculture's products services and experiences, FRDC will explore opportunities to invest and collaborate on RD&E to: 

• Build and maintain trust, acceptance and value

• Understand the drivers of community trust and consumer perception

• Develop tools to build trust, value and acceptance.

Seizing opportunity and harnessing new technology

A changing climate, fierce competition for access, extreme market volatility, increasing demand for social license, the need for data, proof of sustainability credentials, biosecurity threats, and an ageing workforce demand attention. Opportunities include the growing global demand for seafood, the requirement for healthy, nutritious food, reducing carbon footprint, lowering fuel costs and achieving premium prices for niche products.

Best practice sustainability, participation in circular supply chains, research adoption through targeted extension, Indigenous economic opportunities, increased recreational participation and the emergence of artificial intelligence and digitalisation, will position FRDC for the future. The Plan addresses this complex and changing environment and demonstrates how FRDC will deliver quality research to underpin evidence-based decision making.

Sparking innovation and investing for our future

A key feature of the Plan is its embrace of innovative investment models. Through initiatives like the FRDC V-Sea Fund — a program designed to support commercialisation of start up and scale up founders — FRDC aims to accelerate transformative innovation adoption and impact. The Plan also provides a clear frame against which deeper planning processes such as Theory of Change facilitates opportunities for greater collaboration among stakeholders and new partners.

Data and analytics also take centre stage, with plans to build a robust, accessible data ecosystem to inform decision-making and measure impact. Performance will be carefully tracked against clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ensuring transparency, accountability and continuous improvement.

Leading through a stakeholder centred approach

FRDC’s 2025–30 RD&E Plan reflects the voices of more than 300 stakeholders across Indigenous, commercial wild catch and aquaculture, recreational fishing, post-harvest and research sectors.

FRDC Chair Dr Elizabeth (Beth) Woods OAM expressed her gratitude to the hundreds of individuals who participated in the extensive consultation process that shaped the new RD&E Plan.

“Thank you to everyone who contributed to the development of this Plan – including Indigenous, commercial wild-catch and recreational fishers, aquaculturists, researchers, managers, supply chain professionals, government and non-government representatives, and FRDC staff – for generously sharing your time and expertise.” 

“We heard a strong desire for continuity, with stakeholders supporting the ongoing focus on themes from the previous FRDC R&D Plan 2020–25. This will help us deliver long-term impact by responding to key trends and drivers aligned with frameworks such as the National Fisheries Plan.”

Australia’s fishing and aquaculture sectors face an ever-evolving world, but with strategic foresight, innovation and a commitment to collaboration, they can continue to deliver sustainable benefits to communities, economies and ecosystems.

By fostering deep partnerships and co-management of RD&E initiatives, FRDC aims to deliver outcomes that are both practical and impactful, aligned with the needs and goals of those who work in and rely on Australia’s aquatic environments.

Read the full Plan, or visit https://www.frdc.com.au/rd-plan-2025-2030 for more information.