The latest Aquaculture Europe  conference entitled "New Research Frontiers" in Trondheim (Norway) has passed with a great success for us, aquaculture students! AE hosted this year the 4^th international workshop for students and young aquaculturists. Around 40 students from across Europe and guest-students from all over the world participated with great enthusiasm on 15^th of August. The workshop program included not only a dedicated session-program with lectures and seminars, but also a full-day field-trip on 14^tof August to a neighboring salmon and a cod hatchery outside of Trondheim. All the programs were free for EAS and EAS Student Group members, and for anyone who registered to AE2009 conference and applied for the field trip by sending an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Lectures covered a wide range of student-relevant topics on the workshop. Firstly, we gave a short overview about the formation of the EAS Student Group, its past events such as workshops and field trips and opportunities for  travel grants for Aquaculture Europe student participants. The need to increase the network of national coordinators and local student committees within the Student Group was highlighted as it is and stays of high priority in the near future.

Secondly, 'PhD Curriculum Development and Assessment' opportunities for students within the European thematic network for aquatic sciences (AQUAT-NET project, www.aquatnet.com) were presented by Peter Bossier, University Gent. One of the Aqua-TNET member services is the access to an interactive PhD Webportal. The PhD-Database is constructed as a valuable information and research tool for Aqua-TNET members. Its goal is to gather scientific and background information on finished doctoral research work throughout Europe, in a structure as compact and transparent as possible. Aqua-TNET members can find (links to) full PhD - manuscripts, abstracts, related articles and author information. When available and free of copyright and privacy hampering, on-demand video streaming of the PhD - defense is possible. http://www.phdportal.ugent.be/portal.html

‘How to plan and manage our PhD studies in an effective way’ was the next lecture with several practical tips by Prof. Gavin Burnell, University College Cork. Outstanding was the talk about how to stand out of the crowd by making great poster presentations by Catarina Martins from Wageningen University. Workshop participants got feedback on their own posters during a practical exercise. Marc Verdegem, editor of the peer-reviewed journal Aquaculture Research focused on how to get a paper published.

‘How to plan and manage our PhD studies in an effective way’ was the next lecture with several practical tips by Prof. Gavin Burnell, University College Cork. Outstanding was the talk about how to stand out of the crowd by making great poster presentations by Catarina Martins from Wageningen University. Workshop participants got feedback on their own posters during a practical exercise. Marc Verdegem, editor of the peer-reviewed journal Aquaculture Research focused on how to get a paper published.

Plenary discussion among the workshop participants gave an excellent feedback on the workshop and revealed a high demand for networking and exchange of information among students.

A group of eight workshop participants went on a field trip to visit two fish farms near Trondheim. Both the salmon hatchery (operated by Lerøy) and the cod hatchery (operated by Atlantic cod juveniles) opened their gates for the EAS-SG delegation and allowed a deep insight into their facilities. These flow-through systems produce several million juveniles per year to be transported to on-growing sites all over Norway. Huge swarms of fish could therefore be admired by field trip participants, while the hatchery staff patiently answered all visitors’ questions. Field trip was sponsored by European Aquaculture Society and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

EAS-SG İbrahim Okumuş Poster Award was awarded to Francesco Pascoli and colleagues from the University of Padua, Italy: