With the aim of training highly qualified professionals with higher education for Ukraine’s fisheries sector, in 1996, at the Faculty of Zoological Engineering of the National Agrarian University (NAU Order No. 14 of January 23, 1996) with the support of the Institute of Fisheries of the Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences (UAAS) and the Main Directorate of Fisheries of Ukraine, the Department of Fisheries was established. In 2001, the Department of Fisheries was renamed the Department of Aquaculture Production and Processing Technology, and in 2003 - the Department of Aquaculture.
The main areas of activity of the Department of Aquaculture are:
- developing theoretical foundations for enhancing the biological and fish-production potential of Ukraine’s fish-farming reservoirs, as well as improving existing and developing modern, economically and environmentally sound technologies and biotechnologies in pond and industrial aquaculture;
- formulating strategies for the development of sturgeon aquaculture, in particular the creation of genetically homogeneous collections of domesticated sturgeon broodstock for stocking inland waters and commercial sturgeon production using methods of genetic identification and biochemical genetics;
- developing and implementing methods for the identification and evaluation of breeding stocks of aquaculture species at Ukrainian fish farms;
- developing and consolidating a unified regulatory and technical database on the reproduction and rearing of aquaculture species in pond, industrial, and ranch-style aquaculture.
