Master of Aquaculture

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms, including fish, crustaceans, molluscs and algae. Modern aquaculture is a fairly new but very fast growing primary food producing bio-industry. Given the globally declining fishery stocks, aquaculture is considered as the only valid answer to the growing demand for healthy, tasty and sustainably grown seafood or aquatic food.

The Laboratory of Aquaculture & Artemia Reference Center at Ghent University obtained worldwide recognition for its ground-breaking research on live food applications and novel microbial management tools. Since 1991, this research group organises a Master of Science programme in aquaculture (IMAQUA). IMAQUA is the only Master programme in aquaculture of its kind in Flanders. Through the research excellence of the interfaculty UGent Aquaculture Research & Development Consortium (allowing to offer now 2 majors, namely Aquatic Health Management and Sustainable Management of Aquatic Resources); and the intensive collaboration with leading research centers in Europe and beyond, our group remains in touch with cutting edge developments and succeeds in delivering a premium multidisciplinary research-embedded programme.

Given our specific research expertise and our strong involvement in development cooperation projects, our programme predominantly did and will attract students from the South. In order to cater for the necessary degree of specialisation and still be able to train all-round aquaculture experts, IMAQUA launched the plan to team up with selected partners in the South with a complementary programme (Stellenbosch, South-Africa and Can Tho University, Vietnam) and work towards a joint programme leading to a double degree. The goal is to realise a grid of 3 complementary aquaculture programmes that will allow offering flexible but coherent study trajectories ranging from broad multidisciplinary to advanced studies in a specialisation offered at one of the consortium institutions.