The Ecopath Research and Development Consortium is a supporting, cooperative network focused on the research, development and sustainability of the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) approach and software, its information basis, and complementary activities and capabilities. The Consortium is a non-commercial activity that is operated on a not for profit basis. It is the aim of the Consortium to distribute the core software and its source code freely and to practice an open-source software development by peer collaboration and production.
Developments and announcements
- The third General Assembly of the Ecopath Research and Development Consortium was held on 7 December 2019, after the 35 Years Ecopath Conference in St Petersburg, Florida.
- The second General Assembly of the Ecopath Research and Development Consortium was held the 9th of November 2014 in Barcelona, before the 30 Years Ecopath Conference.
- The Consortium organized the 2014 Ecopath Conference in Barcelona, Spain to celebrate Ecopath 30 years.
- The Consortium established a collaborative software co-development system in May 2012.
- The first General Assembly of the Ecopath Research and Development Consortium was held the 7th of May 2012 in Edinburgh, before the 6th World Fisheries Congress.
- The Consortium established a software support system for users in February 2012.
- The Consortium adopted a license model for the EwE software and source code in March 2012.
About the Consortium
- The Ecopath Research and Development Consortium was established in Vancouver, Canada, in October, 2011.
- The Consortium is a global, cooperative network focused on the research, development and sustainability of the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) approach and software, its information basis, and complementary activities and capabilities.
- The Consortium is a non-commercial activity that is operated on a not for profit basis.
- The objective of the Consortium is to contribute to the sustainability of living resources and ecosystems by developing, applying, teaching, and promoting modelling and analytical tools, with a focus on the EwE modelling approach. The work is done as a cooperative effort between research, technical, and educational entities from around the world.
- The Consortium has as its aim to advance the development of EwE, to provide value to the users of the software, and to contribute to research and development of ecosystem-based management with a focus on EwE’s contribution to this.
- The Consortium is organized in an Executive Board, Regional Offices, a Technical Committee, a General Assembly, and a series of Working Groups.
- The Consortium is governed by an Executive Board and composed of registered Members.
Activities supported by the Consortium include:
- Maintain, further develop, and disseminate the EwE software and associated structures
- Develop and promote curricula for related training courses
- Develop and evaluate professional standards and best practices for EwE modeling
- Support research and development activities through working groups and projects
Contributing to the consortium:
Support to the Consortium can be provided by members through (i) assigning personnel to develop new or expand on existing modules for the EwE approach and software and/or to support the Regional Offices, (ii) subscribing to software support or fund specific development, (iii) developing training courses with focus on modelling, application and programming of the EwE approach, (iv) organizing, participating in, and promoting EwE conferences.
Joining the Consortium:
Membership to the Consortium is open to any institute or enterprise interested in supporting the Consortium activities and mandate as stated above, and requires signing a Memorandum of Understanding to express the voluntary incentive to support the Consortium mandate. Please contact the consortium if you want to receive further information about the Consortium or you want to become a member.
Members of the consortium
Current institutional member of the Ecopath Research and Development Consortium are:
- AZTI Centro de Investigación Marina y Alimentaria (AZTI, Spain)
- Cadi Ayyad University (UCA, Morocco)
- Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l’Environnement, University of Perpignan (CRIOBE, France)
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory (CEFAS, UK)
- Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CICIMAR, Mexico)
- Ecology Department, The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS, UK)
- Ecopath International Initiative research association (EII, Spain)
- Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu (Estonia)
- Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economy, The Arctic University of Norway (UIT, Norway)
- FishBase Information and Research Group (FishBase, Philippines)
- Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE, Finland)
- Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Center, Agrocampus ouest, institute for life, food and horticultural sciences and landscaping (France)
- Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ, Belgium)
- NOAA Fisheries (USA)
- Institute for Research and Development (IRD, France)
- Instituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS, Italy)
- Institute of Marine Sciences, Middle East Technical University (METU, Turkey)
- Institute of Marine Science, Spanish National Research Council (ICM-CSIC, Spain)
- Joint Research Centre, Ispra (JRC, Italy)
- Kinneret Limnological Laboratory, Migdal (IOLR, Israel)
- Marine Research Institute, Klaipėda University (KU, Lithuania)
- Natural England (UK)
- Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA, Norway)
- St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences (Canada)
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU-Aqua, Sweden)
- Texas A&M University Corpus Christi (USA)
- Tokio University of Marine Science and Technology (Japan)
- Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Spain)
- Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
- Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (URFN, Brazil)
- University of British Columbia (UBC, Canada)
- University of Cape Town (UCT, South Africa)
- University of South Florida (USF, USA)
- Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ, Belgium)
Please contact the consortium if you want to receive further information about the Consortium or you want to become a member.
Organization
Executive board, last updated 7 December 2019
Chair: | Villy Christensen |
Vice-chair: | Chiara Piroddi |
Secretary: | Jeroen Steenbeek |
Program officer: | -vacant- |
Members: | Francisco (Paco) Arreguin-Sanchez, Rodrigo Bustamante, Beth Fulton, Gideon Gal, Didier Gascuel, Sheila Heymans, Simone Libralato, Kim de Mutsert, Chiara Piroddi, Lynne Shannon, Marc Taylor, Manuel Zetina-Rejon |
Technical committee
The technical committee oversees and organizes Ecopath with Ecosim software development, and organizes user support and co-development. | |
Chair: | Jeroen Steenbeek |
Members: | Ekin Akoglu, Joe Buszowski, Villy Christensen, Jerome Guitton, Mark Platts, Frank Poulsen, Carl Walters |
Communications working group
The communications working group organizes seminars and online content | |
Chair: | Kim de Mutsert |
Members: | Villy Christensen, Leigh McGaughey, Sheila Heymans, Kristy Lewis, Jeroen Steenbeek |
Ecotracer working group
The Ecotracer working group focuses on applying and further extending the EwE contaminant tracing module . | |
Chair: | Maciej Tomczak |
Members: | Shawn Booth, Joe Buszowski, Rasa Morkūnė, Chiara Piroddi, Jeroen Steenbeek, Kieran Tierney, Will Walters |
Policy working group
Chair: | Chiara Piroddi, Maciej Tomczak |
Members: | Howard Townsend, Jacob Bentley |
Training working group
The training working group organizes EwE courses with institutes or on demand from users, and can perform model Quality Assurance assessments on request. | |
Chair: | Kristy Lewis |
Members: | Francisco (Paco) Arreguin-Sanchez, Villy Christensen, Marta Coll, Didier Gascuel, Sheila Heymans, Steve Mackinson, Kim de Mutsert, Jeroen Steenbeek, Maciej Tomczak, Howard Townsend, Divya Varkey, Manuel Zetina Rejon |