Systems group members contributed actively to a very successful AQUA 2018 Conference in Montpellier from 25-29th August 2018. The conference and exhibition attracted over 2,800 participants and had a packed timetable with around 12 concurrent conference sessions as well as an exhibition with 130 exhibitors. 

Starting on Saturday 25th Francis Murray and Will Leschen participated in a special FAO led session on integrated aquaculture-agriculture and agroecology, with Francis Murray presenting on "Effective use of probiotics in aquacuture: Lessons from Asia". Meanwhile John Bostock participated in a EURASTIP project workshop on Europe-Asia cooperation in education and training, leading group sessions on practical means of Asia-Europe collaboration.

On Sunday 26th Trevor Tefer contributed a presentation on the TAPAS project during a panel on New and emerging technologies to service societal needs and value chains as part of a wider session on Food and Value Creation from the Atlantic Ocean. In a separate general session, John Bostock presented preliminary findings from the Erasmus+ BlueEDU project on vocational education and training for the cage farming sector. Dimitar Taskov contributed a presentation on the strucutre and performance of the UK marine net cage salmonid aquaculture industry at the session on Value Chain Economics. 

On Monday 27th, David Little presented on "Sustainable intensification of aquaculture: Lessons from value chain actors in the session on the future of aquaculture value chains. Mahmoud Eltholth presented on "Participatory health management strategy development for aquaculture in Egypt: A novel approach for pond design in the session on Welfare.

On Tuesday 28th David Little participated in a discussion session on "Expanding aquaculture within the planetary boundaries". William Leschen chaired a session on "A Refocussing of Applied Research Priorities and Agenda to Support the Growing Commercial Aquaculture Sector and Associated Value Chain Across all Scales in Africa"

On Wednesday 29th David Little presented on "Research needs in support of growth of small-scale aquaculture globally in the session on "Research priorities in support of commercial aquaculture: A global overview". Mahmoud Eltholth gave two presentations during the session on "Antimicrobials in aquafeeds, prebiotics and probiotics". The first on "Assessment of the effectiveness and cost benefit of prophylactic health products in shrimp" and the second on "Assessing the impact of Bacillus strains mixture probiotic on water quality, growth performance, blood profile and intestinal morphology of Nile tilapia". Trevor Telfer gave a further presentation on "Tools, models and decision support systems for policy and governance: The TAPAS Project" in the session on National Aquaculture Policies & Regulations. Lynne Falconer gave a presentation on "Climate change, sea surface temperature and salmon aquaculture implications" at the session on Adaptation to Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, which she also chaired.   

Our thanks to Lionel Dabbadie for photographs.