From the 17th till the 19th of September 2006, AQUA-TNET partners representing the work packages regarding ‘Masters and Masters of Science curriculum development’ and ‘Transparency in Teaching and Education’ held their first core group meeting in Bergen, Norway. A workshop titled: “Internationalising Aquaculture and Fisheries Degree Programs in Europe: Practical solutions to enhance collaborationâ€? was also carried out during this time.

AQUA-TNET is the Socrates educational thematic network, consisting of more than 100 partners representing universities, training organisations, associations and research performers working in the area of aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic resource management.

The meeting provided an opportunity for core group members to meet and to exchange ideas and experiences regarding the EU reforms in the European Area of Higher Education and European Research Area. The meeting was a big success, with more than 25 partners from across Europe travelling to Bergen to discuss how to educate the network, and position the network, in light of new policies from the European Commission.

Given the diversity of opinions in Europe today on the way educational programs are organised, both between disciplines and countries, representatives from each partner country elaborated on how policies are influencing the educational system in their country and how university studies are now being organised.

With the proceedings of this core group meeting now complete, AQUA-TNET is now preparing to launch a new website. Details of this launch will be forthcoming.

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of AquaTT to thank Karin Pittman, Jan Petter Myklebust and Jorunn Blindheim of the University of Bergen for their hospitality and assistance with the organisation of the event.

For more information: aquatnet@aquatt.ie or marieke@aquatt.ie 

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Carrying Capacity Conference, Westport, Ireland, 28th September 2006

More than 70 delegates travelled to Westport, Co. Mayo, to participate in the Carrying Capacity Conference on 28th September. Participants travelled from all parts of Ireland, the UK, Netherlands, Portugal and Norway, to listen to a host of international speakers who presented pertinent aspects of carrying capacity studies as applied to sea areas, with a particular focus on shellfish aquaculture and fisheries.

The conference was organised by Aqua TT on behalf of Clew Bay Marine Forum, South East Shellfish Co-op and La Tene Maps, who are the Irish representatives in the EU Cooperative Research Carrying Capacity Project, KEYZONES. The one-day conference was generously sponsored by Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Marine Institute.

The opening session was chaired by Mr. John Coleman, a director of Aqua TT and chief executive of La Tene Maps. He introduced the first speaker Mr. John Perry TD, opposition Fine Gael spokesperson on the marine. Mr. Perry made a brief policy speech and formally opened the conference.

The first presentation was given by Dr. Brendan O'Connor, a director of Aquafact International, who gave an important overview titled "What is Carrying Capacity?" which established a solid base for the remainder of the day’s discussions. This aimed to define, in straightforward terms, the elements involved in a carrying capacity study at its most basic level. This was followed by Mr. Ben Dallaghan of BIM who outlined the organisation’s plans for the future.

After the break, Mr. Declan Clark, of the Martin Ryan Institute, NUI Galway, chaired the second session which concentrated on individual components of a carrying capacity study, such as “Shellfish Modelling and Carrying Capacityâ€? presented by Phil Pascoe from Plymouth Marine Laboratory. This theme was continued by Aad Small, from RIVO in the Netherlands, with his talk on biological modelling. Ms. Ana Sequeira, from the Institute of Marine Research in Portugal, then detailed the role of GIS in carrying capacity studies which was quite important as the mechanism through which to demonstrate results. The session was completed by Mr. Marcel Cure who outlined the Marine Institute’s plan for carrying capacity studies and a presentation by MarCon, titled “Carrying Capacity Studies for Mussel and Scallops in Coastal Areasâ€?.

The afternoon session, chaired by Mr. Mark Norman of Taighde Mhara, was devoted to examples of carrying capacity projects SMILE, (Northern Ireland), KEYZONES (Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands) and ECASA (Europe-wide), represented by Mr. Matt Service of AFESD, Mr. Dennis Gowland of Research Relays, Mr. Anouk Blauw of Delft Hydraulics, and Mr. Thom Nickell of SAMS. The final speaker of the session was Mr. Niall O' Boyle from Clew Bay Marine Forum who shared the perspective of a small SME working on a carrying capacity project.

A lively question and answer session, chaired by Mr. Richie Flynn of IFA Aquaculture, was an appropriate end for a very productive day.

Speaking after the conference, organiser John Coleman said "I think that everyone was happy with the level and quality of the talks. I had asked the speakers to keep things appropriate for a diverse audience of stakeholders and government agency people.�

He continued, “The speakers were pleasantly surprised both at the turnout and also the genuine interest by the Irish attendees in the experiences from other areas. As most of the studies presented are at an intermediate stage and ongoing, there were calls for a follow-up conference to look at the results in about two years time. This is something that Aqua TT will actively consider."

Downloadable files of the conference proceedings are available from the events section of the Aqua TT website, www.aquatt.ie.

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Final workshop WAVE project, Lyon, France, 27-29th September 2006

The WAVE project is coming to the end of its 3 year funded period under the EC Leonardo Da Vinci programme. The aim of the WAVE project was to identify and recognise the skills and knowledge needed for work in the European Aquaculture sector (primary production only) using a competency based approach. WAVE has produced a Master List of competencies covering all the main European farmed species and production techniques along with a set of guidelines on how to use WAVE in a variety of ways from assessing training needs to carrying out job interviews. The Master list and WAVE guidelines will shortly be available in 10 EC languages as well as an online tool for customising the list to your farm or training course. More information on the WAVE project and to find out how you can get a copy of the guidelines visit the WAVE project website, www.waveproject.com

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PESCALEX Start-up Meeting

The first PESCALEX meeting took place in Dublin on 16-17th November, and was attended by Mrs M.Eleftheriou (AMC), Dr P Christofilogiannis (AQUARK), Ms L Fraga (CETMAR), Mme C. Desmarais, Mme C. Goulletquert (LYCEE), Ms. E.McVeigh (AquaTT), Dr W. O'Connell (Bergen), and Professor R.Trebaziatowski (SZCZECIN)

Startup meetings of pilot projects are particularly important, even when partners know one another, and have previously worked together. The nature of the pilot project implies innovation, and aspects of innovative processes sometime require a lot of spelling out. In PESCALEX, it is the CLIL methodology (Content and Language Integrated Learning) that is not familiar to the content specialists in the partnerships. The meeting therefore began with a presentation on the PESCALEX Concept, demonstrating the relevance of the PESCALEX language project to the aquaculture curriculum.

The CLIL methodology is well suited to the narrowly- focused subject area of Fish Diseases, with its simple language structures, the high level of knowledge of complex terminology, and the need for fast recognition of disease symptoms. There is a good chance of success in this project, because it is based on Beginner and Basic Level online Language lessons which have already been tried and tested in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish. It will be our task to adapt and translate them into French, Spanish, Norwegian and Polish.

The Fish Diseases Glossary will also form a major part of PESCALEX, with the terms and definitions being taken from the AQUALEX database. The first draft is already available, totalling 1472 items, which we hope to finalise by the end of the year so that translation into Polish can begin as soon as possible.
The new module concerns Fish Diseases, and at the Startup meeting it was decided that the partner responsible  Dr Christofilogiannis (AQUARK) should focus on 6 main species relevant to European industry. We are to decide on these species later. We had been sent the courses "Basic Techniques in Fish Haematology", "Fish Health Management" and "Cost Effective Feeding of Fish". The latter, even though it is the longest module, should have new material on turbot which BERGEN will produce.

We spent a long time discussing how to plan the final Teacher Training Workshop (target audience, venue, timing, suitability of methodology for teacher training). Venue: Lycee de la Mer et du Littoral, in Bourcefranc le Chapus in France, despite its rather remote location. Time for the workshop-June 2007. It was decided to delay the choice of target audience, as CLIL method is still very innovative, and much may depend on the willingness of teachers and/or students to act as guinea pigs in this pilot project.