The Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program is a federally funded program which supports Australian industries’ ability to compete and produce. This is achieved by helping industry to partner with the research sector to solve industry-identified problems in 2 ways:
CRC grants offer co-funding for industry-led research. CRCs must:
A CRC collaboration must also include at least 1 Australian business, and 1 Australian research organisation.
This was the basis for funding the sheep and wool CRC’s from 1993-2020.
Find out what a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is, what it does, and how the CRC network brings knowledge together.
The Parties involved in this, the first wool and sheep industry CRC, were:
The CRC operated from 1993- 2000.
A number of other organisations or companies were involved in the activities of the CRC as Supporting Parties. Included in this category were:
The New South Wales and Western Australian State Governments and the George Aitken Pastoral Research Trust also made substantial cash grants for capital equipment purchases specifically related to the activities of the CRC.
Programs developed by the CRC were:
The CRC’s education program was novel for the period. It consisted of a series of lectures delivered to dispersed universities via a video link. The PowerPoint presentations used in these lectures are all available on Woolwise.
Over 19 years (2001-2020) and three iterations, the Sheep CRC fostered collaborations between researchers and industry to transform Australia’s sheep industry to consistently deliver high quality wool and meat products. Its national education and training programs are ensuring a healthy future for the industry.
The Australian Wool Education Trust was established during the term of the CRC for Premium Quality Wool and funded the development of the Woolwise website, the platform via which the CRC publicised its activities and provided access to its educational output on a fee paying basis. At the conclusion of the CRC the Trust resumed ownership of the website and its contents. The educational materials, consisting largely of PowerPoint presentations and associated notes, were then made available for free to all interested parties.
The Trust continued its association with the Australian Sheep CRC 1, contributing to the funding of the Wool and Sheep educational materials developed by the CRC. At the end of this CRC ownership of all its educational materials was assigned to the Trust, on condition that it continue to fund their delivery. To this end the Trust has licensed the materials to the University of New England, and continues to subsidise their delivery.
In March 2020 the final Sheep CRC was wound up after a final conference in Dubbo, NSW, in March 2020.