ICES meeting to kick off in Copenhagen

MORE than 600 scientists, policy makers, stakeholders, students, and organisation representatives will descend on Copenhagen next week, when the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) hold its annual science conference in the city.
At the event, taking place in the DGI Byen conference centre from September 21-25, scientists will present research on a broad spectrum of topics – from ocean acidification and hypoxia to marine spatial planning and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD).
The science will also reflect the wider strategic work being carried out by ICES on climate change, ocean sustainability, and integrated ecosystem understanding.
‘We are looking forward to welcoming participants to the conference – both the first timers and the well established,’ said ICES general secretary Anne Christine Brusendorff.
‘It’s great that the conference is being hosted in our home city, with the ICES secretariat having been here for over a hundred years, and Denmark being one of our member countries right from the start.
‘In that time, we’ve evolved into the organisation we are now, which deals with broader ecosystem issues and science, including the production of integrated ecosystem assessments.’
She said this year’s conference will ‘provide a platform for this important strategic work, with discussions on such assessments as a link between the science and the advice required in applying the ecosystem approach’.
The opening ceremony is on Monday, September 21, at 1pm. Professor Henrik Gislason, of the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at Denmark’s Technical University (DTU-Aqua), will give an open lecture on understanding patterns in marine species richness.