The 23rd International Seaweed Symposium: seaweed from tradition to innovation!

The 23rd International Seaweed Symposium (ISS) was held in Jeju, Republic of Korea, on April 28 to May 3, 2019, at the International Convention Centre. The ISS is a triannual congress held under the auspices of the International Seaweed Association (ISA; www.ISASeaweed.org). Starting from humble beginnings in 1952 with the First International Seaweed Symposium in Edinburgh, Scotland, with Dr. F.N. Woodward as chairman (Indergaard 2017), we are now almost 7 decades further with the 23rd Symposium in Korea. In 1952, almost 200 people attended from 21 different countries, and 53 papers were submitted; we now have peaked at over 850 registrants from 41 different countries, 22 mini symposia, 349 oral presentations, and 259 poster presentations (Fig. 1). During the last decade, seaweeds in general have become very popular as they have such a wide and diverse application from raw material and aquaculture/IMTA to fertiliser and biostimulants, feed and animal health, food and human health to materials, fabric, pharma, biotechnology and carbon sequestration/ habitat restauration (Fig. 2). Coupling this to the Korea’s long history and tradition of seaweed aquaculture and food use and the 23rd ISS was guaranteed to become a success. We are also happy to report that the exhibition/trade show is a growing part of the ISS which became very apparent at the Korean congress demonstrating the wide variety of seaweed use in everyday life. The link with the seaweed industry is of vital importance to the ISS concept and stimulates synergy and partnerships between academics and industry and provides vital important funding to be able to run these conferences.