An International Fish Biology and Fisheries Society
We provide opportunities for our members to access monetary grants, PhD scholarships, internships and training within the fish biology and fisheries field.
The FSBI/IFM Joint Annual Symposium 2025
The first Joint Symposium of FSBI and the Institute of Fisheries Management
Hosted by Queen's University Belfast
7th-11th July, Belfast
WHO we are
The FSBI is an international, non-political, learned society based in the United Kingdom, that supports scientific activity in fish biology and fisheries science through charitable activities including grant funding, travel awards and conference sponsorship, and through the publication of the Journal of Fish Biology.
Membership is open to anyone interested in these objectives.
We are constantly trying to improve the society to make it more accessible and valuable to our members, to find out more about our current plans for progress click here >>
Member benefits
We have a range of benefits for members at every career stage from undergraduates to retired society members. Below is a selection of the many member benefits we offer.
Travel Grant Funding
Members can apply to get up to £1500 in travel money for conferences and FSBI approved events.
Research Grants
Student or Retired members can apply for funding to undertake novel research.
Postdoctoral Fellowships
Postdoctoral members can apply for up to £20,000 for research that facilitates international mobility of expertise.
PhD studentships
Members can apply for a fully funded PhD position. Paid the same as a NERC position with a £1000 supplement and annual consumable funds.
Internships
Undergraduate members can apply for a summer internship with an institution. We also cover the accommodation cost and contribute to any research costs.
Training Grants
Our members can apply for funding towards a training course that is related to their work in fish biology and/or fisheries.
Our membership
Our membership is managed by the RSB portal on our my.fsbi subdomain, to buy membership you will first need to make a account then select which membership option you want.
Click one of the sign up buttons below the membership options to take you to our my.fsbi member portal.
Basic Membership
£10/yr
Journal Membership
£30/yr
Includes basic membership +
Student Journal Membership
£30/yr
£15/yr
Includes basic membership + Journal membership +
FAQ
We are an international community and registered charity that celebrates diversity and inclusion and have members from over 32 countries. We welcome anyone who is passionate about fish and fisheries biology to join our society. Becoming an undergraduate member of the FSBI will not only benefit your access to recent papers but will also enhance your CV and provide you with many opportunities to get involved with the scientific community. We also provide summer Internship opportunities for our undergraduate members at a chosen academic institution. We even pay for your accommodation costs!
This will give student members of either organisation access to the student services of the other at no extra cost. This is an optional sign up you can select for the student journal membership.
What does it give you?
- Discounted rates for both FSBI and IFM events
- Ability to apply for FSBI and IFM funding
- Increased networking and career support opportunities
Find Out More Here!
We have our own dedicated membership support member who can be contacted on the phone at 02039253477 or by email: theteam@fsbi.org.uk
For specific grant based inquiries you can also contact the appropriate council member found on our About page.
We will send you a email reminder before your membership expires with a link to renew your membership. If you need a reminder of when your membership will run out please email theteam@fsbi.org.uk
FSBI ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM
Since 1977, the highlight of each year has always been our amazing annual symposium. Next year's symposium is hosted by Queen's University Belfast and the IFM in Belfast July 2025.
FSBI Latest News AND STUDENT BLOGS
Fish and fisheries job Board
Read Our Quarterly Newsletter
Our quarterly newsletter, edited and put together by Professor Paul Hart, gives you a summary of all the wonderful news and updates from the society and our members.
If you would like to contribute to the newsletter please get in contact with Paul ASAP. Click Here to Email Paul
Congratulations to 2024's FSBI Medal Winners
Each year, the FSBI awards medals for lifelong individual contributions to fish biology and/or fisheries science, with a focus on ground-breaking research; for lifelong individual or team contributions to conservation, training or public understanding of the disciplines; and for individual exceptional advances in early career within these disciplines.

Beverton Medal
Prof Skúli Skúlason
The Beverton Medal is awarded to an individual in recognition of ground-breaking research and lifelong contribution to the study of fish and fisheries science.
For more than three decades Skúli Skúlason has devoted his research activity to asking some of the most fundamental questions in biology. How does diversity arise? What are the mechanisms that drive the very earliest stages of divergence? A combination of
elegantly crafted laboratory based experimental studies and a comparative approach in the field use naturally rapidly diverging fish populations to understand the evolutionary patterns found in nature, most notably using Arctic charr and the three-spined stickleback from his native Iceland. Skúli’s theoretical framework, and empirical testing of that framework, contributed considerably to the general shift in the acceptance that evolutionary divergence can occur in sympatry.

Le CREN MEDAL
Dr Peter A Henderson
The Le Cren medal is awarded to one or more individuals who have made a lifelong contribution, with a focus on conservation, training or public understanding.
Peter has had a major impact on fish conservation globally over the last 30 years. Through his role as an environmental consultant for NGOs including the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, and Surfers against Sewage, he has helped protect fish populations and provided expert advice to many local conservation organisations concerned about impacts of power plants, dams, desalination plants, water extraction and sewage discharges. He has acted as an expert witness on energy and port industries in both Europe and North America, and in the Peruvian Amazon he supported indigenous tribal nations whose rivers and streams were being exploited for mining. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Mamirauá Sustainable Development reserve in the Upper Amazon in Brazil (https://mamiraua.org/ ) which is now the largest freshwater nature reserve in the world, and he has played a pivotal role in training future generations of fish biologists through multiple books.

HUNTINGford MEDAL
Dr. Michael Grant
The Huntingford medal is awarded to a member of the society with the most impactful paper published in in the Journal of Fish Biology.
Michael Grant’s research focuses on conservation of threatened species in low income developing nations. Michael research uses a range of fisheries, conservation, and social science methods to understand the conservation status, threats, and uses and values of threatened species to local resources users in complex livelihood contexts. Of particular interest to Michael is the conservation of non-marine sharks and rays. Michael has conducted major research expeditions in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia to collect information for future conservation planning of these overlooked species. Recently, Michael’s research has explored the use of vertebral chemistry to better understand the life history of non-marine sharks and rays, providing promising results for improved ageing and ecological applications. Within the shark conservation community, Michael is an active member of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group and is vice president of the Sawfish Conservation Society.

FSBI MEDAL
Dr. Erika J Eliason
The FSBI medal is awarded to an early career scientist who is deemed to have made exceptional advances in the study of fish biology and/or fisheries science.
Erika is a physiologist best known for her work on salmonids and their plight along the west coast of North America, with her work routinely cited in management policy, but her research papers span tropical fish biology to polar species, and elasmobranchs to model fish. She has been at the forefront of integrating physiology into other disciplines of fish biology including fisheries management, fish behaviour, biotelemetry, and conservation, and has pushed the boundaries of these fields by embracing new technology and methods including heart rate biologging methods, new surgical techniques, and field respirometry methods, and she has brought her physiological perspective to teams formed from ecologists, wildlife biologists and computational modelers. Her expertise in these areas is evidenced by the additional roles she holds within the fish biology community including being a specialist panel member of the IUCN salmonid specialist group, the editor of a number of book series in fish physiology.
Meet Our New FSBI Students
Each Year we advertise studentships to take on a new PhD student sponsored by the FSBI!

University of Glasgow
Joris Philip (2024-)
Molecular mechanisms of repeated adaptative divergences in Arctic charr.
Joris is an evolutionary ecologist working on the speciation of the Arctic charr. He has been working on the Arctic charr since 2019 where he studied their behavioural ecology in what is known to be the most famous Arctic charr system, Lake Thingvallavtn in Iceland. His journey in the field of evolution have been inspired by Beverton and FSBI medal winners, Prof. Skuli Skulason, Prof. Colin Adams and Prof. Kathryn Elmer. His PhD research focuses on the genetic basis and molecular mechanisms of parallel evolution in the Arctic charr in Scotland. He uses replicated Arctic charr ecotypes as a model system to unravel the contribution of different gene regulatory processes to alternative phenotypic evolution and investigate their underlying genetic basis. Furthermore, Joris integrate a multi-taxa approach in order to determine the regulatory mechanisms underlying parallel phenotypic plasticity responses across salmonid species. Overall, he is interested in addressing the overarching question in ecological speciation by trying to connect evolutionary genomics, behavioural ecology and quantitative genetics to do so.

University of Hull
Claudio Silva de Freitas (2023-)
Can hybrid “magic” accelerate speciation?
Claudio is a Portuguese/South African researcher investigating visual systems in fish. The aquatic light environment is unique because water differentially absorbs light spectra relative to depth, with a corresponding decrease in light intensity due to water molecules and dissolved particles, causing a scattering effect. Changes in genes associated with visual systems have the potential to disproportionately drive evolutionary change because they can simultaneously contribute to ecological adaptation and reproductive isolation in species where mate choice is based on nuptial colours (“magic traits”). With the development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and the significant genomic data available on fish visual systems, Claudio has been able to test hypotheses regarding the adaptive significance of specific genomic changes and their ecological and reproductive consequences, while also defining visual plasticity. Haplochromine cichlids provide an ideal system for this research. The East African Great Lakes are home to several thousand endemic cichlid species, shaped by both natural and sexual selection.

University of East Anglia
Maisie Evans (2022-)
Interactions between CMS-listed migratory sharks and commercial fisheries.
As a PhD student at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Maisie is collaborating with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) to assess impacts of commercial fisheries on sharks and rays listed on the Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species. Aiming to aid species management in British waters, Maisie is working to determine bycatch levels, assess mortality rates, and determine future habitat suitability of the UK shelf, extending to British Overseas Territories, under different climate scenarios. Whilst working with Cefas, Maisie has gained experience on the RV Cefas Endeavour collecting stock assessment data in the English Channel and North Sea. Prior to her PhD, Maisie worked as a Tutor with the Field Studies Council, in finance for Operation Wallacea, and as Volunteer Coordinator at their field site in Honduras. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Conservation from Nottingham Trent University and a Master’s degree in Ecology and Conservation from UEA.

University of Bristol
Rebecca Frances Bentley (2022-)
Evolution of functional morphology in a massive radiation of Neotropical catfishes.
Rebecca’s research focuses on the evolution of a large radiation of neotropical catfishes, Loricariidae to understand the interactions between ecology and morphology. Loricariidae represents over 1,060 species while the majority are detritivores and algivores they display a diversity of ecological niches. Using computerized tomography (CT) scanning technology, specimens from the Natural History Museum (NHM) of over 70 spp. has been used to describe a wide diversity of jaw morphology. The extent that Loricariid jaw morphology is functional (and reflects these niches) is being identified using phylogenetics and feeding efficiency trials so far inferring that the jaws are functional. The final aspect of the project will involve identifying the divergent gene expression between representatives of this family and how the gene expression develops in an individual species.
Check Out our New YouTube Series: Inside the FSBI!
Explore how our society works and the experiences of some of our members, grant winners and medalists!
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IFM - FSBI Membership partners
Created in 1969 in the UK, the IFM is dedicated to the advancement of sustainable fisheries management. Like the fsbi, they are a non-profit organisation managed by an elected council. Our members are fisheries managers from research bodies, fishing and angling organisations, water companies, fish farms and educational institutions.