In the latest edition of e-Chook news, Poultry CRC CEO, Professor Mingan Choct, explains why his organisation is calling for research proposals that focus on industry transferrable ideas in this year's funding round. The call for proposals will be announced this week.

Professor Choct writes: "Achieving increased productivity within the Australian poultry industry is becoming more difficult due to increased incidences of extreme weather, competing demands for feed grains and tightening environmental and welfare constraints. Furthermore, the nature of the poultry industry is such that the easily deployable scientific tools have been fully exploited. Frontier science with advanced facilities is now required to achieve new and transformational solutions. Thus, the Poultry CRC has taken the approach to produce tools that are high-tech and long-lasting by investing a large amount of its funds in fundamental research.

"However, there is an urgent requirement for us to deliver quick, robust solutions to industry to enhance our end-user engagement. Thus, I would like to encourage our researchers to talk to our industry partners, listen to their suggestions, and come up with innovative ideas to address their needs. Each project must be completed within 18 months at most and have a clear and immediate application," he writes.

The Poultry CRC is not a funding body and therefore the call for proposals is only open to its Participants. Despite this, the researchers there are encouraged to engage scientists from non-participant organisations if the collaboration adds value to their projects and brings benefits to the Australian poultry industry.