Services and activities

The EURCAW-Aqua will provide educational programs, workshops, and training courses both to civil servants, inspectors and officers working in EU institutions and NCA’s of member states on a free of fee basis.

Services

The EURCAW-Aqua will establish a portfolio of competitive services for the EU institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, European Council, Court of Justice of the European Union) and National Competent Authorities (NCA) of EU member states, based on sound scientific knowledge and operational excellence. The EURCAW-Aqua will provide technical support and advisory services, will coordinate assistance to EU in carrying out official controls, and will disseminate good practices operating as an information and resources hub. The EURCAW-Aqua will provide the National CA with access to case studies, research and scientific findings, technical data, novel welfare tools, techniques and technologies to improve on farm aquatic animals’ welfare, and to provide scientific evidence for the improvement of EU relevant regulatory framework/legislation. All relevant material will be publicly available through the Centre’s web page. The EURCAW-Aqua will provide educational programs, workshops, and training courses both to civil servants, inspectors and officers working in EU institutions and NCA’s of member states on a free of fee basis.

To cover the need for firsthand official information about the activities of the EURCAW-Aqua and to support the Centre with technical information, a Reflection Board (REB) will be set up. The REB will represent the farmed aquatic animals supply chain, relevant professional organisations, civil society organisations, and relative advisory councils and reference bodies of EU interest. The European Commission will be invited as an observer. REB will meet annually and the exact composition of the REB will be defined in the first year of operation of EURCAW-Aqua. The names of the organisations represented on the Reflection Board will be presented on our website.

To address ethical considerations in organizational conflict, an Ethics Committee will be established. The role of the Ethics Committee will be the establishment of ethical guidelines and a code of conduct for the staff and partners of the EURACAW-Aqua. The Ethics Committee will review and approve the proposed advisory services, will safeguard unbiased decisions and will work on ethical aspects of welfare.

Activities

The EURACAW-Aqua has identified five main areas of activities/supporting tasks:

Coordinated assistance
Animal welfare indicators, methods for the assessment and methods of improvement
Scientific and technical studies
Training courses
Dissemination research findings and innovation activities.

The full titles of the Sub-activities for the 2024 work programme are:

Support Coordinated Assistance

To support Coordinated Assistance, EURCAW-Aqua will develop the following activities:

Sub-activity 1.1: Central contact point for technical assistance/information required by the NCAS
Sub-activity 1.2: Network building, meetings and workshops

Develop and promote animal welfare indicators

To develop and promote animal welfare indicators, methods for the assessment and methods of welfare improvement:

Sub-activity 2.1 Currently available indicators and knowledge gaps
Sub-activity 2.2: Species-specific scalable welfare score for common carp during transport and at harvest
Sub-activity 2.3: Reviewing current available welfare assessment schemes for farmed fish

Scientific and technical studies

Scientific and technical studies will be:

Sub-activity 3.1: Reviewing welfare topics related to EU anD National welfare regulations of main aquatic famed species at transport and harvest
Sub-activity 3.2: Reviewing the available instruments and methods to detect loss of consciousness and/or sensibility of fish at slaughter

Training activities

Training activities will include:

Sub-activity 4.1: Development of fish and cephalopods welfare training courses: identification of training needs of inspectors and on the evaluation of existing training activities and materials at EU and National level)