On June 11 and 12, the Annual Meeting of EATiP was held in Brussels, with more than 50 participants.  After a word of welcome by the EATiP President, Gustavo Larrazábal, and a report on the past activities and achievements by the new Secretary General, Alexandra Neyts, recent European Research and Innovation strategies of relevance to aquaculture were presented to the members and invitees.

Ongoing policy processes, related to Food from the Oceans, Food2030, the revision of the bioeconomy strategy and the mission-oriented rationale in the new Horizon Europe Framework showed the important role of EATiP in mobilising aquaculture stakeholders in Europe to jointly state their research priorities and recommendations.  The newly established Mirror Platforms provided their views on how to increase cross-national understanding and exchange of knowledge, whereas the attendees provided ideas on how EATiP and these multi-stakeholder regional clusters could provide an extra stimulus to R&I induced aquaculture growth in Europe.

European projects with involvement from EATiP, i.e. EURASTiP, AQUAEXCEL2020, E-FishNet, were presented, as was the TAPAS project.  Day 2 of the Annual Meeting opened with a talk on the public perception of aquaculture, which has been identified as one of the main bottlenecks for growth.  Contributions from collaborating networks, including EFARO, JPI Oceans and ETP FABRE, revealed a strong belief that joint forces may strengthen the case for increased aquaculture relevant innovation support.  Information provided by the European Commission (DG RTD, DG MARE, FARNET, SAMS) and the European Parliament certainly confirmed the awareness of the need for a strong multi-stakeholder engagement in the transition towards a growing, evidence-based, sustainable aquaculture sector in Europe.

EATiP wishes to thank all speakers and attendants who contributed to making this Annual Meeting a success! Our next appointment is at AQUA2018 on the EU/EATiP day (August 27^th in Montpellier) – welcome!