Latest news

Wool For School

Wool4School is an annual student design competition encouraging emerging fashion designers to promote the unparalleled properties and benefits of wool. The competition is open to

Read More »

Why Wool Matters

His Royal Highness, King Charles III, Patron Campaign for Wool. “It is abundantly clear to me that we need to make changes to the way

Read More »
View All News articles

AWET Annual Reports

AWET’s 2022/23 Annual Report is available now.

The Trust produces a summary report of its activities each year. These reports are intended to advise the organisations responsible for the appointment of Trustees about the Trust’s activities during the calendar year. However, they are also available to the general public.

Copies can be downloaded using the links below.

From 2003 to 2012 these are based on calendar years. From 2012/13 each report is for the financial year and includes the Report, Financial Statements and Auditors Report.

UNE Wool & Sheep Modules 2022

Dr James Preston describes the courses available at University of New England in 2022.

Sheep and wool units overview

James is one of the lecturers presenting these courses.

AWI/TWC On-line Resources

Learn About Wool

Australian Wool Innovation has developed, in conjunction with Australian teachers, the LEARN ABOUT WOOL website .

This flexible and interactive range of resources can be easily incorporated into everyday classroom activities and support the development of students in line with curriculum guidelines across key content areas, including science, history, geography, design and technologies, and business and economics.

Wool Introductory Course

The WOOL INTRODUCTORY COURSE is a 25 minute course providing high level marketing education.

Wool Appreciation Course

The WOOL APPRECIATION COURSE is a 3-hour course that looks at the fibre from farm to fashion.

At completion of this course you can gain your own Wool Appreciation Badge from Credly. This can be displayed on your own digital professional portfolio such as Linkedin!

AWI YouTube Videos

AWI has a produced a large number of  VIDEOS PUBLISHED ON YOUTUBE, covering an extensive range of topics. These are excellent resource materials for educators, students, producers and other industry participants.

The Wool Lab

In 2010 (approximately) The Woolmark Company produced a physical collection of new and innovative fabrics. This is now available on-line.

The background for this innovation is provided on Woolwise.

Link to The Wool Lab Digital.

International Wool Textile Organisation

IWTO is the global authority for standards in the wool textile industry. Since 1930, IWTO has represented the collected interests of the global wool trade.

IWTO’s members come from all stages of the wool textile pipeline, from farm to retail. Through scientific research, wool textile education and knowledge sharing, IWTO ensures a sustainable future for wool.

IWTO’s website, www.iwto.org, provides information about its members, its programs and its events as well as other resources.

IWTO maintains a YouTube presence via its IWTOCHANNEL.

Primary Industry Education Foundation

The Primary Industries Education Foundation Australia (PIEFA) is a tripartite, not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, formed through the collaboration of the Australian Government, primary industries organisations and the education sector.

PIEFA is governed by a skills based board of directors and operated by a small secretariat. The PIEFA board is appointed for a period of 3 years and is selected by a panel consisting of member representatives and an independent chair.

PIEFA is a registered charitable institution with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission. PIEFA is independently audited annually with an annual report produced and made available to members.

PIEFA provides a credible and authoritative one stop source for primary industries educational information and resources to help build knowledge about this sector.

Livestock Library

The Livestock Library is an online or virtual library of information supporting Australia’s livestock industries. This resource was developed by the Sheep CRC and the Beef CRC.

It provides one-stop access to a wide range of Australian research publications, conference proceedings and reports on sheep and cattle research.

Benefits:
  • Immediate on-line access to over 60,000 full text publications relating to sheep and beef production;
  • Access to abstracts where the full text is not immediately available due to copyright;
  • Key word search capability.

There are over 24,000 full text documents available through the Livestock Library Research Database. Most of these resources are conference papers or journal articles. The serial titles held by the Livestock Library are complete, starting with the first published issue of every title. In addition, a federated search capability allows users to simultaneously search the websites of all state Departments of Agriculture and Primary Industries, AWI and MLA and the Livestock Library Research Database, providing immediate access to over 60,000 full text publications relating to sheep and beef production.

 

Journal of Wool Technology and Sheep Breeding

Access the Sheep Journal

When the Wool Technology journal was first published in 1954 by the University of New South Wales it was a unique vehicle for communicating technical information to sheep and wool industry participants. The journal also provided an advertising vehicle for Merino studbreeders and industry service companies in its earlier years.

Many journal papers were generated from the annual Wool Schools held at the School of Wool and Pastoral Sciences at UNSW. School staff and graduates have been responsible for much of the research in the sheep and wool industry with many School graduates taking up research and extension positions in CSIRO, State Departments, Universities etc.

The journal was published from UNSW, WRONZ and then UNE before it developed into the Internatonal Journal for Sheep and Wool Science.

When the journal(s) ceased publication in 2010 the then Editor, Professor David Cottle created an on-line archive using Open Journal Systems (OJS) as a platform. Subsequent to his retirement the management of this archive was transferred to the Australian Wool Education Trust.

Consistent with its approach to supporting wool and sheep education the Trust has made access to the archive open source to registered users i.e. available at no fee.

To access the archive use this link Sheep and Wool Journal.

Woolwise Overview

Woolwise provides access to resource material developed  using funding provided by the Australian Wool Education Trust, or by the Trust in collaboration with other parties.

It is a repository for educational material developed by the Premium Quality Wool Co-operative Research Centre (CRC), which commenced in 1993 and wound up its activities in 2000,  for the Wool and Sheep Industry CRC, which commenced in 2001 and wound up in 2008, and for the Australian Wool Textile Training Centre, in 2006 and 2007.

Woolwise was originally developed, using funding provided by the then AWTA Ltd Wool Education Trust, to provide an online presence for the Premium Quality Wool CRC while it was operating, but also to provide access to the educational material produced by the CRC.

When the CRC terminated the site ownership reverted to the Australian Wool Education Trust

The original website developed by the CRC for Premium Quality Wool has been retained within the current site in order to preserve the history of Woolwise and to acknowledge the people responsible for its creation.

The core parties of the Sheep CRC transferred ownership of the educational IP produced by the CRC to AWET in 2008. These materials are now available from AWET via Woolwise subject to specific conditions of use.

The Australian Wool Education Trust was established in 1998 by the Australian Wool Testing Authority Ltd. The Trust owns and manages Woolwise

As a result of this transfer the educational material provided on Woolwise extends beyond wool production, processing and marketing to include other aspects of the sheep industry. such as sheep meat production, genetics and sustainable land management.

The Trust has licenced this educational IP to the University of New England (UNE). It is the basis of a number of wool and sheep units delivered by UNE. This arrangement is unique for agricultural education in Australia. The courses are offered in external mode to students enrolled in UNE and other Universities within Australia. This “hub and spoke” model for education about wool and sheep recognises that it is difficult for any one University to maintain sufficient student numbers to justify such specialised courses within their Agricultural Science Degrees.

To facilitate the delivery of these units the Trust provides funds to:

• Support the delivery of the educational modules

• Provide scholarships at the undergraduate and 4th year level

• Subsidise the cost of travel incurred by external students attending workshops at UNE

• Compensate external Universities for any loss of revenue as a consequence of their students enrolling in the wool courses delivered by UNE.

Other Activities of the Australian Wool Education Trust

In addition to managing the resources developed by both CRC’s the Trust provides funding for a range of activities such as:

  • Education programs for wool industry participants;
  • Development of education programs about the Australian Wool Industry within primary and secondary schools;
  • Scholarships for students undergoing wool education within the VET sector; and
  • Grants to students in Fashion Schools.