Institute of Aquaculture head Professor Simon MacKenzie outside the National Aquaculture Innovation and Technology Hub (NATIH) at the Institute of Aquaculture, Stirling University.

Photo: FFE

Aquaculture institute gives a glimpse of the future of fish science

Gareth Moore editor

Published 4 August 2025 - 14:08

Early images of Stirling University’s new National Aquaculture Training and Innovation Hub (NATIH) have been shared ahead of its handover by contractors later this month.

The £20 million facility marks a major investment in aquaculture research by the university, the Scottish and UK governments, and the local council and provides the University’s Institute of Aquaculture (IoA) with modern facilities that enable it to carry out work on a wide range of aquatic species, for its own purposes and in collaboration with others.

IoA professor Trevor Telfer gave a presentation about NATIH at an aquaculture conference held ahead of the Aquaculture Awards in Inverness in June, and last Friday IoA chief Professor Simon MacKenzie put on his hard hat and steel-toed boots to give salmon sector journalists a tour of the building.

17 RAS

Although there’s still a lot of finishing off to be done, the many tanks that range in size from just a few litres to 500 litres, are in place. Perhaps even more importantly, so are the 17 completely separate recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) systems that will enable many different experiments and trials to take place at the same time, or to enable a researcher to use a wide range of different water conditions at ther same time. There are also three flow-through challenge rooms.

With the ability to work with fish, crustaceans, or even algae, at temperatures bewteen 6 and 28°C, NATIH has been designed to provide as much flexibility as possible, said MacKenzie.

One of the key elements of the design is to provide so much flexibility and gather so much information that each experiment, trial or disease challenge only needs to be done once, in line with the replacement, reduction, and refinement (3 Rs) principles for use of animals in scientific research. These aim to minimise animal suffering and maximise scientific validity when animal research is necessary.

Read more about NATIH in the English-language edition of LandbasedAQ magazine, which can be read online.