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Marine Developmental Biology

Imsland tops productivity list 2009

In 2009, Professor II Albert Imsland was the Department of Biology’s (BIO’s) most prolific author, with a total of 12 publications having a summed impact factor of 15.5.

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BIO, Albert Imsland

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Imsland is the Research Director for Aquaculture and the Manager for Akvaplan-niva's Iceland Office. Akvaplan-niva is located in Tromsø and provides consultancy, research and laboratory services to companies, authorities, NGO's and other customers worldwide.

As a Professor II, Imsland provides a valuable liaison between academia and industry. This collaboration is important for BIO researcher activity as well as providing "hands-on" practical experience opportunities for BIO students. In particular students taking MAR252 have a practicum period of at least three weeks in an industrial setting.

Imsland feels that Norway's Professor II positions give Norwegian universities unique opportunities to take advantage of top level experts, while enabling these specialists to continue their top level activity in their home location. Imsland himself was educated at Bio at the University of Bergen (UiB), so he knows both many of the researchers and the academic milieu. Since graduating with a PhD, he has been working for 15 years in industry where he has an extensive network within the aquaculture industry both nationally and internationally.

For Akvaplan-niva, having an active university connection and a research actively engaged in publishable research is good publicity. For the university, students get first-hand access to working life in aquaculture and most are able to get jobs in the field when they graduate. In addition to teaching MAR252 Imsland has masters and PhD students - 28 masters students over the past 15 years! Needless to say they all have had benefitted from being able to have practical projects in industrial settings - a win-win for everyone!

Aquaculture is Norway's second largest industry. With such tight bonds between academia and research, this situation is likely to continue in the future. BIO students are lucky to be part of a system that has such creative solutions as Professor II positions enabling them to have wonderful practical opportunities during their study period. And BIO is lucky to have resources such as Professor Imsland to give them a window into such a valuable industry network.