Background

SafeFish provides technical advice to support Australia’s seafood trade and market access negotiations and helps to resolve barriers to trade. It does this by bringing together experts in food safety and hygiene to work with the industry and regulators through an unincorporated partnership, to agree and prioritise technical issues impacting on free and fair market access for Australian seafood. An important part of the SafeFish remit is to build capability in food safety and market access for the Australian seafood industry. The purpose of this grant is to encourage research projects around priority issues on the SafeFish agenda, whilst simultaneously building our researchers of the future. Blue sky and applied projects will be considered.

Grant scope

SafeFish will provide a grant for a passionate post-graduate student undertaking a research project specific to food safety or market access of Australian seafood and aspiring to remain in the sector on completion. Example research areas could be contamination of any hazard (microbial, chemical or physical) in seafood either produced or imported into Australia, public health aspects, risk assessment, risk management or risk communication, supply chain/processing activities that impact food safety, traceability, seafood fraud related to food safety, or other high priority topics deemed acceptable to the SafeFish partnership.

The grant can be used for the following purposes: operating expenses directly relating to the research; conference/workshop participation when presenting; a collaborative placement; or publication expenses. The applicant must outline in their application the purpose for which the funds will be used.

Additional benefits to the recipient will be networking with national and international industry and government, exposure of their research at a national level and the potential career opportunities that may arise from this. Were possible the student will be introduced to international researchers relevant to their work.

Grant value

The grant will be $10,000 per annum (2022 rate, indexed annually). Applicants may apply for access to the grant for one to three years. Only one grant will be awarded per year. Where students are awarded the grant across multiple years, appropriate review periods will be built into the contract.

The grant will be awarded following a competitive process.

  1. SafeFish will advertise the post-graduate grant widely across Australia, calling for applications in November each year.
  2. Applicants will need to complete the SafeFish Post-graduate Grant Application, addressing the selection criteria below.
  3. A SafeFish committee will review the applications, and rank those that meet the essential selection criteria against the additional criteria listed below.
  4. The top ranked application will be awarded the grant. The SafeFish committee reserves the right to interview applicants if necessary. There will be no appeals process for unsuccessful applicants.
  5. The SafeFish committee may choose to award the grant for the whole period applied for, or for one or two years only.
  6. The grant will only be advertised the following year if funds remain available. In this case the process will be repeated annually, with the value reduced accordingly.

Grant conditions

The recipient will be required to enter into a contract that stipulates:

  • SafeFish must be notified of any outputs associated with the grant prior to publication/presentation (papers, reviews, presentations, web documents, social media postings, articles etc.)
  • The recipient must acknowledge SafeFish funding on any outputs associated with the funding
  • SafeFish must be allowed to review any outputs associated with the grant to ensure appropriate risk communication is contained within the output and can occur alongside the output. Note: SafeFish will not prevent release of outputs that contain robust and defendable research
  • The recipient must attend one SafeFish partnership meeting per year to present an aspect of their work covered by the grant
  • At the completion of the research or at the end of each year, the applicant must provide SafeFish with a written progress report on their work covered by the grant
  • Stop/go points will be included in the contract for students receiving the grant for more than one year
  • Safefish must be notified immediately of any changed circumstances affecting completion of the investigation
  • SafeFish reserves the right to discontinue a grant if it deems the recipients situation/research changes such that they are no longer addressing the scope of the grant or making the expected progress. This judgement will be based on the annual report to SafeFish partners and comments from Supervisors
  • The grant must be taken at the advertised time, subject to any unforeseen changes in travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic
  • The student’s University will do everything possible to assist the scholar to ensure the safe and timely completion of the grant
  • The student will comply with their University’s rules and regulations
  • The host University remains responsible for the students’ wellbeing and SafeFish does not accept any liability in this regard, including for any travel undertaken using grant funds

Selection criteria

  1. The applicant must be an Australian Citizen or Australian Permanent Resident post-graduate research student at an Australian University, and must reside in Australia for the period of their research candidature
  2. The project must focus on a priority (as recognised by SafeFish) food safety or market access related issue for seafood in/from Australia included in the list below
  3. The applicant accepts the grant conditions
  4. The project is sound and represents either a significant improvement in knowledge of the issue; or enables change in practice that will assist in resolution of the issue
  5. The purpose for which the funds will be used is justifiable and will make a difference to the project
  6. Extension/communication of results/outputs is clearly stated and appropriate

Project priority areas:

  • Ciguatera
  • Vibrios
  • Chemical contaminants
  • Food fraud
  • Shellfish toxins
  • Listeria
  • Traceability
  • Microplastics
  • Climate Change
  • Other issues with a food safety/market access focus will be considered if a justification is supplied.

Enquiries

For further information or enquiries, please contact info@safefish.com.au

Submission

Submissions for 2024 are now open and close on 1 March 2024.

To submit an application please click here.