An annual gathering of researchers and innovators
Every year CIIMAR and CCMAR community meet to exchange ideas.
The Centre of Marine Sciences of the Algarve, also known by its acronym CCMAR, is this year’s location for the Blue Think Conference 2026. The intention to alternate Matosinhos and Faro as location of the conference wants to be the symbol of the ongoing collaboration between CIIMAR and CCMAR and their respective PhD students’ committees.
CIIMAR (Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Research) has traditionally been the location of the Blue Think Conference.
Our keynote speakers
Session 1
Biology, Aquaculture & Seafood Quality
Sadasivam J. Kaushik
University of Las Palmas, Spain.
Sadasivam J. Kaushik earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the prestigious Presidency College of Madras University in India. He received his Doctor of Science degree from the University of Bretagne Occidentale, France, for his work on the influence of salinity on nitrogen metabolism and arginine requirement of rainbow trout. As an active member of the committee on fish nutrition and production of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, he was actively involved in fish nutrition research and training.
He was the director of the INRA – IFREMER Joint research units on fish nutrition and also headed the hydrobiology research station at Saint Pée sur Nivelle, France. He has more than 300 scientific papers and books on fish nutrition and feeding. Has been active in coordinating European research projects in fish nutrition and metabolism. Further to his retirement from INRA, he held a European research area chair position in the University of Las Palmas, Spain.
Session 2
Marine Biotechnology, Biomedicine & Biochemistry
Ana Grenha
Drug Delivery Lab, Centre for Marine Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Algarve
Ana Grenha has received her PhD in Pharmacy-Pharmaceutical Technology from the University of Santiago de Compostela – Spain in 2007. She joined the University of Algarve in Portugal for a Professorship in Pharmaceutical Technology in 2007 and received her Habilitation in Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Lisbon in 2022. Since July 2023 she is Associate Professor in Pharmaceutical Technology. She is the PI of the Drug Delivery Laboratory, part of the Centre for Marine Sciences (CCMAR-UAlg), which is mainly dedicated to respiratory drug delivery, with a particular focus on inhalation.
She is also an active collaborator of the iMed from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon. The research group is also keen on exploring the potential of natural materials, namely polysaccharides, fostering new applications that benefit from their intrinsic properties. Additionally, there is strong expertise on encapsulation technologies, which have been applied in distinct areas ranging from the pharmaceutical area with drug delivery, to aquaculture with the development of specific feeding strategies, and food science in the context of supplementation. She is currently the Director of the Integrated Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences at UAlg, is a member of the Board of Directors of CCMAR-UAlg since 2018 and is part of the Drug Delivery to the Lungs (DDL) Conference Committee since 2019.She has been the PI of several funded projects, and has authored ca. 50 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, 6 book chapters and 2 patents (1 pending) in the field of drug inhalation. She has supervised 4 PhD thesis and approximately 15 Master thesis, all in the field of drug delivery. She was awarded the prize Investigador Universidade do Algarve 2022 and in 2020 received the Robalo Cordeiro Award from the Portuguese Society of Pneumology, attributed to a scientific project on pulmonary immunisation strategies.She is also an active collaborator of the iMed from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon. The research group is also keen on exploring the potential of natural materials, namely polysaccharides, fostering new applications that benefit from their intrinsic properties. Additionally, there is strong expertise on encapsulation technologies, which have been applied in distinct areas ranging from the pharmaceutical area with drug delivery, to aquaculture with the development of specific feeding strategies, and food science in the context of supplementation. She is currently the Director of the Integrated Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences at UAlg, is a member of the Board of Directors of CCMAR-UAlg since 2018 and is part of the Drug Delivery to the Lungs (DDL) Conference Committee since 2019.She has been the PI of several funded projects, and has authored ca. 50 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, 6 book chapters and 2 patents (1 pending) in the field of drug inhalation. She has supervised 4 PhD thesis and approximately 15 Master thesis, all in the field of drug delivery. She was awarded the prize Investigador Universidade do Algarve 2022 and in 2020 received the Robalo Cordeiro Award from the Portuguese Society of Pneumology, attributed to a scientific project on pulmonary immunisation strategies.
Session 3
Global Changes, Ecosystem Services & Human Impacts
Tasman Crowe
University College Dublin
Professor Tasman Crowe is Vice President for Sustainability at University College Dublin. Previously, he was director of the UCD Earth Institute and co-founder and co-director of a new interdisciplinary BSc in Sustainability. He is chair of Ireland’s National Biodiversity Forum, a member of the Independent Advisory Committee for Nature Restoration and co-chairs an advisory group to government on the expansion of Ireland’s network of Marine Protected Areas.
His research characterises impacts of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems and the services and benefits they provide to society, including their cultural value.
The conference will commence in: