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International Society for Applied phycology

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Previous congresses

8th Congress - Porto, Portugal - 2024

The ISAP 2024 congress had a special focus on “Algae 2030: Challenges and Opportunities”, offering an excellent forum for discussions and establishing new partnerships. Over the course of five days, attendees presented their most recent work, engaging in lively discussions and debates, and forging interdisciplinary consortia towards the successful attraction of European and worldwide funding agencies and or business opportunities (Figure 1). For students, this conference provided an invaluable exchange of ideas inspiring and creating new networks that will be instrumental in their future careers.

ISAP congresses started in 1999 in Montecatini, Italy, with 279 registrants from 42 countries, 85 oral and 162 posters. The congress in Porto attracted 400 registrants from 51 countries, 134 oral presentations and 160 poster presentations. The ISAP2024 congress also featured an opening lecture by Tiago Pitta, 6 invited keynotes speakers, 8 organised special sessions and 2 workshops dedicated to early-career researchers (Figure 2). The ISAP Executive Committee (EC) also held its General Assembly (GA) and presented the activities conducted during the triennial period 2021-2024. The minutes of the GA are reported in annex I. The congress participants had a wonderful week of scientifically stimulating presentations, learning about the traditional use of algae and visiting industrial facilities on the technical tours, exploring new applications and innovative solutions in many fields of research from the various exhibitors in parallel while enjoying the great Portuguese hospitality and entertainment through the social program.


The Social Program was started, as is tradition, on the Sunday evening, allowing participants to reconnect with old friends and make new ones, while having a bite to eat and some drinks with a view of the river Douro and Porto city. One of the mid-symposium tours gave the participants an opportunity to explore the sustainable cultivation of microalgae through a visit to Allmicroalgae – Natural Products S.A (Figure 3). This company specializes on microalgae solutions for dietary supplements, food, feed and agricultural applications, and is focused on both optimizing all aspects of microalgae production and the improvement of the biochemical and functional properties of the final products. The other tour led participants to rediscover traditional algal uses in the North of Portugal (Figure 4). This visit recalled traditional ways of working on the Portuguese coastline where fishermen-farmers brought the Sargaço and the Pilado crab from the sea and to spread it out on the white sands of Apúlia and to later serve as a fertilizer in nearby fields (traditional called Masseiras), where all kinds of agricultural products were grown.

Photographs - ©CIIMAR.

At the closing ceremony on Friday June 28th of June, twelve Student awards were attributed and kindly sponsored by Springer. The best student presentation awards given for ‘outstanding student oral presentations’ at the 8th ISAP, as determined by the ISAP EC Award Committee, for micro and macroalgae awardees, are listed below.

The Local Organising Committee of the 8th ISAP conference presented the best student poster awards in micro and macroalgae. Awardees are listed below.

Furthermore, the organizers would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge all sponsors and donors (https://isap2024.com/sponsors-3/). We would especially like to recognise the support of Springer and CIIMAR to organise the early-career researchers’ activities. The ISAP EC also attributed 5 travel grants to early career scientists from DAC-list countries to support them in joining our 8th ISAP congress, however only 2 of them made it to the Congress due to various reasons. All of these initiatives were conducted in an attempt to reach out to the next generation of researchers that hopefully will continue to advance the field of applied phycology. At the closing ceremony we were delighted to have with us Dr Ashiwin Vadiveloo from Murdoch University announcing that the next ISAP conference will be held in Perth, Western Australia in 2027. Further announcements will be made over the coming year, please stay tuned on our social media channels and webpages! We are looking forward to doing it all again and meet up at the 9th ISAP conference in Perth Western Australia in 2027!

7th Congress - Virtual Platform - 2021


The 2020 conference was trust to a scientific team of Algae Biomass and Energy System R&D Center (ABES), University of Tsukuba, euglena Co., and Algae Industry Incubation Consortium (AIIC), Japan to organize the 7th Congress of the Society in Chiba at Makuhari Messe from 19 to 24 April, 2020. Previous ISAP Congresses had achieved the role of bringing the people with their knowledge & skills in the field of applied phycology to develop further potential in a commercial, remedial or regulatory context. 
At the end of February 2020, under circumstances of the pandemic of COVID-19, the EC and LOC were forced to conclude to postpone the conference for one year. It was decided that the congress be postponed to 23 to 28 May, 2021 in Tsukuba at International Congress Center. In the middle of August 2020, under the continuous situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EC and LOC were forced again to conclude that the uncertainties of the current situation have not been changed, and less likely there will be a drastic improvement before May 2021. Thus, the 7th ISAP has been moved to the online congress, starting from 14 May, 2021 until 13 August, 2021.

The final presentation and closing ceremony of the ISAP 2021 conference can be found here.
Additionally a report from the local organising committee (LOC) can be foind if you  click here.

The gerneral assembly presentation and summary of the conference can be found in the ISAP July 2021 Newsletter.

6th Congress - Nantes - France – 2017

During the 5-days-congress, the academic and corporate community of applied phycology (microalgae and macroalgae-seaweeds) gathered in Nantes to participate to numerous activities : 560 attendees, 150 talks, 200 posters, 14 exhibitors, B2B meetings, young researcher workshops, Labs and R&D facilities visits and social events.


This event also hosted different meetings : ISAP General Assembly ; Atlantic Microalgae Consortium General Assembly ; meeting of the international scientific consortium WONDER « World Oilalg Network for Design of processes and  strains for Elaboration of Renewable energy from microalgae » (Murdoch-Australie, Tsukuba-Japon, Univ. California UCLA-USA, GEPEA-CNRS-Univ. Nantes France) ; « Seaweed at Stake » : Stakeholder meeting catalyzing future collaboration (Organized by  MAFOR/MARFORSTAKE and Phycomorph),and a public-conference for the Nantes Citizens (158 additional participants) : « Les algues : de la Biodiversité Marine à la conquête spatiale » by Colomban de Vargas (CNRS Station Biologique Roscoff, Tara Expeditions) and Christophe Lasseur (European Space Agency, Melissa Program).

For details visit https://isap2017.sciencesconf.org/

See official pictures of the congress: https://www.flickr.com/photos

5th Congress - 2014

Sydney - Australia

The 5th Congress was held 22 - 27 June 2014 in Sydney, the Great Biofuels Debate was also held at ISAP 2014 in Sydney.

  • Brief report of debate including speakers details here.
  • Members can access this debate by clicking here.

4th Congress - 2011

Halifax - Nova Scotia

The 4th Congress of the International Society for Applied Phycology was held in Halifax, Canada from June 19th - 24th, 2011.

3rd Congress - 2008

Galway - Ireland

The 11th tri-annual International Conference on Applied Phycology was held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland from  from 22nd of June to 27th of June 2008.

Report (PDF)

2nd Congress -2005

Kunming - China

President's Report (PowerPoint File)

Treasurer's Report (PowerPoint File)

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