Network Overview

The NSERC Canadian Fisheries Research Network (CFRN) is a unique collaboration of academic researchers, the fishing industry, and government researchers and managers from across Canada. The Network includes over 30 academics from 15 universities working closely with representatives of fishing fleets from Canada’s Atlantic, Pacific and freshwater fisheries, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).  This partnership is industry-driven and built around projects that involve the active collaboration of each sector.

 

The Network was launched in 2010 with five years of support from the NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Network Grants program.  It was recognized that better knowledge of aquatic ecosystems, as they relate to management and industry operations, is needed to reduce environmental impacts, inform decision-making, and evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies on sustainability. 

 

The Network has been designed to focus on issues of direct relevance to industry, and is aimed at increasing knowledge that will enhance the ecological sustainability, socio-economic viability and management of Canadian fisheries. The research objectives of the Network are to:

 

1. overcome information gaps for important commercial fisheries and improve the use of industry information in assessment and management;
2. enhance ecological sustainability while achieving operational efficiency; and
3. improve the basis for the ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

 

The Network will provide a forum for sharing research objectives and results that will build capacity in each sector.  It will establish a tradition of collaborative, strategic fisheries research in Canada that is expected to outlast the Network. In addition, the Network will train a cohort of new researchers that will be equipped to meet the challenges of fisheries research in the future.