During the month of May 2021, Impaqt (intelligent Management Systems for Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture) launched an online training in Mooc format, with contents organized in 3 modules, covering topics such as Imta practices and challenges, including assessment of the sustainability, quality and safety of fish products, policies affecting EU aquaculture, and the Impaqt platform. The Mooc course is available on the OpenLearnCreate platform of the Open University and all information can be found on the project website.

Funded by the European Horizon 2020 program and coordinated by the Marine Institute (Ireland), the project brings together 21 multidisciplinary partners from 12 countries, with the aim of promoting and supporting the eco-intensification of production systems in aquaculture. This training will make most of the project results accessible in an understandable and dynamic online format, and is aimed at: aquaculture producers, operators and end users, end user and intermediary worker trainers, regulatory bodies and policy makers, and national and pan-national organizations for the development of aquaculture.

The project team also actively participates in European aquaculture events, such as Aquaculture Europe 2020 (12-15 April 2021), where Impaqt results were presented via webinars, oral presentations, poster design and a booth at the e-Market open to the public. In addition, Impaqt is collaborating with other projects of the European Union's H2020 program in the blue economy and aquaculture sector, to establish new synergies and broaden the scope of their results. At the same time, the partners are elaborating information in order to propose the inclusion of the project results and their added value, with the aim of improving regulation, standardization and European policy, in line with the realization of a more sustainable. In the coming months, a manual will be published which illustrates all the main developments and related processes of the project.

Imta is a new concept in which several species belonging to different levels of the food chain (fish, algae, crustaceans, etc.) are reared in the same place in an integrated and complementary way. The natural ability of these species to recycle nutrients (or waste) found in and around fish farms can help farmers improve the environmental performance of their facilities, while also providing additional economic benefits. Impaqt wants to indicate a path for a paradigm shift in EU aquaculture, moving from traditional production systems (monoculture) to the integrated multi-trophic aquaculture production system (Imta)

Thanks to the implementation of ecosystem services and circular economy principles, the partners developed new cost-effective technologies for IMTA monitoring and management, and advanced models to realize the optimal configuration of integrated aquaculture systems. Furthermore, the efficiency of the sector is enhanced by an intelligent management system (IMS) that integrates data collected from different sources to generate real-time feedback on activities.

These technologies are being tested and validated at 6 pilot sites; in Ireland, Turkey, the Netherlands, Scotland and China. In this phase, the project team is involved in fine-tuning the IMS system and completing the analysis of the efficiency, sustainability and circularity of the system's production.