All year round attractions

THE EAS aims to ‘empower’ members to do what they do at shows all year round, said Alistair Lane.

‘This is being achieved, to a certain extent, through the Thematic Groups (we have three active groups on eels, percids and copepods) and the new initiatives, the webinars and podcasts.’

The webinars or EAStalks, normally held on the first Tuesday of each month, are not just based on things that might be conference presentations, in other words, scientific disciplines.

‘We’re trying to do different things like what does ETIP [European Technology and Information Platform] do, what is the Aquaculture Advisory Council and what is its mandate,’ said Lane.

The webinar format is 30 minutes presentation and 15 minutes Q&A, and Lane said they have between 80 and 100 people signing up. (Contact ana@aquaeas.eu).

The latest one was on March 3, a focus on ‘CtrlAqua: Contribution to future aquaculture’ presented by Åsa Espmark, centre director of CtrlAQUA and senior scientist in Nofima.

They started doing the podcasts in Berlin, with a face to face 20-mintue chat, available online for members.

Other perks for members include the now digitalised scientific journal Aquaculture International – and access to all papers published in the last 15 or so years. And members can see the abstracts from all conferences since 2013.

Lane said priority has also been given to increasing the EAS’s social media outreach, where they now have a combined total of 8,000 followers, mainly through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.