The function and duties of the European Union Reference Laboratory (EURL) for Crustacean Diseases, located at Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in UK, has from 1 July 2018 been transferred to the EURL for Fish Diseases, located at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark (DTU Aqua).
In 2017, the EURL for fish diseases was asked for the possibility of taking over the tasks of the EURL for crustacean diseases, by merging the two EURLs into one EURL with the new name of “EURL for fish and crustacean diseases”. Reasons for this were Brexit and the general desire of the European Commission to decrease the number of EURLs in Europe. After negotiations, the EURL for fish diseases accepted the terms, which included the possibility of assigning a full time scientist to implement the functions and duties of the EURL for crustacean diseases from 1 July 2018.
The EURL will structurally be placed in the Unit for Fish and Shellfish diseases at DTU Aqua. The process of transferring activities and material between the two laboratories is still in process. We encourage those of you interested, to follow the process on the website www.eurl-fish.eu, which in near future will change to www.eurl-fish-crustacean.eu.
The EURL for fish and crustacean diseases will strive to have a strong collaboration with Cefas, in order to continue a strong scientific advancement within crustacean diseases in Europe.