Welcome to another edition of eChook.
It’s been a big month. Many of you may have heard that the Poultry CRC won the WPSA Industry/Organisation Award at the World’s Poultry Congress in Brisbane in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the development of the poultry industry. This is a great honour for all of us involved in the Poultry CRC. Thank you all for your contributions to the CRC’s activities over the past five years!
The World’s Poultry Congress
The Poultry CRC made 33 presentations, many of which were by invited speakers, at the WPC in Brisbane. The Congress was very well organised by Dr Bob Pym and his team. The Poultry CRC stand had hundreds of visitors with a great deal of interest in our research, education and outreach activities, including Poultry Hub, through which the CRC is delivering a comprehensive set of industry-relevant information to the poultry communities around the globe.
The Poultry CRC Re-Bid
It is now reasonably certain that the “Green Paper” on Australia’s National Innovation System Review will be released on 31 July. After consultation, the “White Paper”, i.e., the final recommendations, will be released by the end of 2008. However, no one really knows when the Guidelines for the next round of CRCs will be announced. The CRC Association guesses that it could be around October 2008, possibly with some financial decisions announced.
It is expected that some fundamental changes to the way innovation is approached in Australia will occur. We already know the Government is very much behind the CRC Program and “Public Good” will be restored as a feature of all CRCs (it already is in our CRC). There is also a lot of talk about the lifecycle of CRCs, i.e., can a CRC only continue after 7 years via a re-bid, or is there a different structure that will reward success while also encouraging the development of new ideas? We will have lots of ideas about which way it will lean after 31 July.
In the meantime, it is business as usual at the Poultry CRC. We all need to think about new ideas for projects and plan for our re-bid. We expect short notice from the Government and have to be ready to respond to it effectively and professionally.
Regards,
Mingan
