AquaTT

Second AQUAEXCEL Key Achievements Booklet Now Available

The activities and results of the AQUAEXCEL (Aquaculture infrastructures for excellence in European fish research) project have been summarised in a new publication entitled AQUAEXCEL Key Achievements 2013-2014.

AQUAEXCEL is an EC FP7-funded project which aims to integrate key aquaculture research infrastructures across Europe in order to promote their coordinated use and development. The project’s focus is on further improving the efficiency of aquaculture production and supporting European research activities in this area.

The AQUAEXCEL Key Achievements 2013-2014 booklet is the second in a series of booklets outlining the recent accomplishments of the project for a non-expert audience.

Key outputs of the project are highlighted in the booklet. These include details of four pioneering technical training courses organised and delivered by AQUAEXCEL partners that focused on different aspects of aquaculture experimentation, and descriptions of new aquaculture research tools and methodologies developed through the project, such as guidelines describing best practice methods for measuring particular observable traits in aquaculture fish species and prototype electronic infrastructures (e-infrastructures) which enable interchange of data and remote operation of aquaculture research facilities over the internet.

Over the course of the project, AQUAEXCEL regularly invited proposals from European research groups for scientific research that utilised the facilities of the participating aquaculture Research Infrastructures. Results of research carried out under the Transnational Access programme are also highlighted in the booklet, including fish feed studies examining the substitution of fish meal and fish oil with alternative ingredients such as insect meal and hazelnut oil.
 
Reflecting on the accomplishments of the project so far, AQUAEXCEL’s coordinator Dr Marc Vandeputte, from l’Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France, said: “AQUAEXCEL, through its joint research activities and its Transnational Access programme, has shown the value of collaborative research efforts to produce results which are valuable not only to the scientific community but which are also demonstrably beneficial to the European aquaculture industry as a whole. This booklet highlights some of these exciting new findings. As we enter the final few months of the project, more and more concrete results are becoming available, and we will have even more impressive knowledge to share in the very near future.”

The AQUAEXCEL Key Achievements 2011-2013 and 2013-2014 publications are available to download from www.aquaexcel.eu, or in hardcopy by request.

To request hard copies of these booklets, or for press queries, please contact: Marieke Reuver, Programme Manager, AquaTT, Dublin, Ireland, email: marieke@aquatt.ie