Report of the Workshop on Technical Development to Support Fisheries Data Collection (WKSEATEC)

This workshop, chaired by Dave Stokes (Ireland) and Marcellus Rödiger (Germany), was held at ICES headquarters, Copenhagen, from 12th – 14th September 2017. There were 16 attendees and 2 remote participants representing 12 countries from the Mediterranean, Baltic and Atlantic areas including the US.WKSEATEC was set up by the ICES Steering Group on Integrated Ecosystem Obser-vation and Monitoring (SSGIEOM) to make recommendations on technical solutions for the collection and quality assurance of fisheries data at sea and in ports. The objectives can be summarised by two complimentary themes; i) to maximise the effectiveness of quality assurance checks in a data collection program greatest focus and sup-port needs to be on the very start of the process, during sampling itself; ii) this can only reasonably be achieved once the data are in a digital format which requires improved uptake in electronic data capture methods.