Please note - ICES web site down 1/8 (26/07/10)
On 1 August (08:00-22:00) ICES web site will be down due to maintenance. GroupNet will still be available.

ESA Sustainability Science Award to ICES Scientists (06/07/10)
Martin Lindegren (DTU Aqua), Christian Möllmann (University of Hamburg), Anders Nielsen (DTU Aqua), and Nils C. Stenseth (CEES, University of Oslo), will receive this year’s Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America (ESA). The award is granted for their paper “Preventing the collapse of the Baltic cod stock through an ecosystem-based management approach” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009. The study—which develops a model for managing Baltic cod stocks based on fishing pressure, salinity and other environmental conditions—focuses on a science-based approach for the sustainable management of fisheries. The results illustrate that ecosystem-based fisheries management can prevent future catastrophic events, such as another collapse of the stock. The award will be presented at ESA’s 95th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh in August. Read more here.

ICES/OSPAR Workshop on the lysosomal stability data quality and interpretation (WKLYS), 13-17 September 2010 (30/06/10)
ICES, OSPAR and MEDPOL are organizing a joint training workshop on lysosomal membrane stability (neutral red retention assay) in mussel, 13-17 September 2010. The ICES/OSPAR Workshop on the lysosomal stability data quality and interpretation (WKLYS)runs in cooperation with a MEDPOL training course "Biomonitoring systems employing sentinel organisms". Both courses follow the same programme during the first three days but separate for the remaining two days, when MEDPOL is doing intercalibration of other biomarkers, whereas the ICES/OSPAR part will focus on compiling a graphic illustrated guidance paper. Click here for more information.

SEAMBOR report: Sustainable use of our seas needs an integrated view of humans and nature (28/06/10)

ICES has pooled its expertise with the Marine Board-European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European Fisheriesand Aquaculture Research Organization (EFARO), bringing insights from marine science, fisheries, socio-economics and policy. The “Science Dimensions of an Ecosystem Approach to Management of Biotic Ocean Resources” (SEAMBOR) report was presented at EU Maritime Day 2010 on 19 May.

Ken Sherman to receive the Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development 2010 (25/06/10)
ICES announces with great pleasure and pride that Ken Sherman, NOAA, one of our most distinguished ICES colleagues, will receive the prestigious “Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development 2010”. He will share this prize, one million Swedish crowns, with Randall Arauz, Costa Rica, who has been working to stop shark finning.
Ken is the father of the Large Marine Ecosystem concept and has been working tirelessly for three decades to generate acceptance for the concept among scientists and politicians. He has been instrumental in establishing the 64 defined LMEs around the world and in implementing the 16 GEF funded LME projects. One of these is the Baltic Sea Regional Project, BSRP, which was jointly coordinated by HELCOM and ICES during the years 2003-2007.
The award ceremony will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 17 November this year.
You will find more information about the Göteborg Award for Sustainable Development and the award winners here.
For further information about the LME concept, click here.
For information about the Baltic LME project, click here.

News from the Training Programme (18/06/10)
26 trainees from 17 countries participated the ICES Training Course “Introduction to Bayesian Inference in Fisheries Science” at ICES HQ 7-11 June. The objective of the course was to familiarize the participants with basic concepts of Bayesian inference and to provide skills for solving simple problems. The participants gained hands on experience in using MS Excel and OpenBUGS software for Bayesian computation. Teachers at the course were Professor Dr. Ray Hilborn, School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, USA and Dr. Samu Mäntyniemi, Fisheries and Environmental Management Group, University of Helsinki, Finland. Read more information about the ICES Training Programme.

IOC honours the SCICOM Chair (15/06/10)
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) has honoured Dr. Manuel Barange, Chair of the ICES Science Committee (SCICOM), with the Roger Revelle Medal for his outstanding contributions to ocean sciences. Read more on the IOC website.

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) (15/06/10)
ICES has provided scientific support to the European Commission as a background for the preparation of the Commission Decision on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters. The work has been done in close cooperation with the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) in ISPRA.

A total of 10 Task Group reports have been prepared relating to the descriptors of Good Environmental Status (GES) listed in Annex I of the Directive. Eight reports have been prepared by groups of independent experts coordinated by JRC and ICES. In addition, reports for two descriptors (Contaminants in fish and other seafood and Marine Litter) were written by expert groups coordinated by DG SANCO and IFREMER respectively.

In addition to these report a Management Group report has been prepared which provides the proper context for the individual Task Group reports as well as a discussion of a number of important overarching issues.

The reports can be found on ICES website. The reports are also published as EU publications available from EU Bookshop, where you can place an order with the sales agent of your choice.

Stomach content dataset: Online release (09/06/10)
ICES has compiled and are now releasing an historical 'Year of the Stomach' dataset for the North Sea. A standardized and quality-controlled version of the stomach dataset that has been prepared in a response to a WGSAM request.
The first year of the stomach ran in 1981 and covered a handful of species in the North Sea. There was a follow up data collection performed in 1985-1986 and a decade later in 1991 the 2nd year of the stomach ran. The stomach contents dataset has data from 1980 to 1991 and it is available for download here.

New issue of ICES Inside Out (09/06/10)

The latest issue of ICES Inside Out, in its brand new format, is ready to download here.

Call for ASC 2011 theme session proposals (19/05/10)
The deadline for submitting theme session proposals for the ASC 2011 to be held in Gdansk, Poland, is Monday, 6 September 2010.

New Theme Session proposals – or updates to existing ones – should be sent to this email, using this template. Theme session proposals emanating from SCICOM Steering Group meetings or ACOM consultations held during the ASC will be considered provided the proposals are submitted by the end of Wednesday, 22 September.

Theme Session proposers are encouraged to link their proposals to one of the five ICES SCICOM Steering Groups or to ICES ACOM, to ensure that their objectives address the priorities in the ICES Science Plan.

The final package of Theme Sessions for the ASC 2011 will be approved by SCICOM in late September this year.

US-ICES website now open! (26/04/10)
Information website for US participants in various ICES activities is now open. Click here to visit the US home for ICES information.

News from ICES Training Programme (22/04/10)
The course ‘Management Strategy Evaluation (including FLR)’ was held in CETMAR, Centro Tecnologico del Mar, Bouzas, Vigo, Spain, between 5–9 April 2010. 23 participants from 12 countries were kept very busy during the whole week in Vigo while covering the many aspects within Management Strategy Evaluation. Participants came from various areas of fisheries research, i.e. stock assessment, management, economics, biology and computational fisheries science. Participants were very active, and some presented relevant issues from their own field that were related to the course content. Participants having previous knowledge of the tools employed (R as language, and Monte Carlo simulation as general approach) experienced an easier learning process during the course. For further information on this course, please see here.

 Read more about ICES Training Programme here.

Alasdair McIntyre, one of Scotland’s leading marine scientists, died peacefully on Thursday 15 April after a short illness. Many in the ICES community will remember Alasdair and his wife Catherine who were regular attendees at the Annual Science Conference. Alasdair was the UK Delegate at ICES in 1984-1985, chair (1978-1980) of the Marine Environmental Quality Committee, and chair (1982-1983) of the Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution (ACMP).

Alasdair's scientific career spanned forty years at the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, where he conducted and led research on marine ecology, fisheries and pollution. He was appointed Director of Fisheries Research for Scotland in 1983 and Co-ordinator of Fisheries Research and Development for the United Kingdom in 1986. On his retirement in 1987 he became Emeritus Professor of Fisheries and Oceanography at the University of Aberdeen. He was much involved in issues of marine environmental quality and human impacts, including the effects of fishing, of pollutant inputs and of oil exploitation. He was awarded the CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 1994 for services to Fisheries and Marine Conservation.

He held many influential positions that included; Chairman of the Atlantic Frontier Environmental Forum; Chairman of the Falkland Islands Exploration and Production Environmental Forum; Vice-President of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, having been President from 1988-93; Council Member of the Marine Conservation Society; Member of the IUCN Commission on Ecology; Editor-in-Chief of the Journal "Fisheries Research". He was UK Representative (Alternate) to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission; Chairman of the Marine Forum for Environmental Issues; President of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science; and the Chairman of the Trustees, Buckland Foundation.

FIMPAS (18/01/10)
You are invited to three workshops in 2010 and 2011 on the development of fisheries management measures in Natura 2000 sites in the Dutch EEZ and to observe the formulation of the final advice on the appropriateness of such measures through the ICES process. The work on the development of this proposal is organised in the FIsheries Measures in Protected AreaS: The FIMPAS project which brings stakeholders and scientists together to establish a basis for the regulatory proposal. Paul Connolly (Ireland) chairs the three planned workshops.

The first of three workshops is on data needs and data compilation and will take place at the Carlton Beach Hotel, Scheveningen, Den Haag, Netherlands 22-24 February 2010.
Please direct inquiries to Diane Lindemann or to Charlotte Lie-ping. The workshop focuses on the available data and the data needs for answering questions concerning human impact on these sites. At this stage we are not dealing with the conflict analysis which is the topic for workshop 2 which is scheduled for June, 28 – 30, 2010. The third and final workshop January 24 – 26, 2011 will present the results of biological and socio-economic considerations and discuss a proposal for management measures and their socio-economic consequences. ACOM will develop and deliver the ICES advice on 1 May 2011.

New ICES Head of Advisory Services (22/12/09)
We are pleased to confirm that we now have a signed contract with
our new Head of Advisory Services. Warm welcome to Mr Poul Degnbol, who will have his first working day at ICES on Monday 1 March 2010. Many of you know Poul Degnbol already, from his career time in DG
Mare as Adviser on scientific matters (2006–present), and from when Poul was employed with ICES as Chair of Advisory Committee on Fishery Management (ACFM) (2003–2005). Additionally, Poul Degnbol has a long career as i.a. Director for the Institute for Fisheries Management and Coastal Community Development (IFM) and research director at the Danish Institute for Fisheries and Marine Research.