The University of Cape Town was established in 1918 and is currently the highest-ranking university in Africa. The vision of the university is to be “an inclusive, research-intensive African university that addresses the challenges of our time with cutting-edge teaching, research and facilities.” The Department of Biological Sciences at UCT was established in 2013 with the merging of the long-standing Botany and Zoology departments and has more than 30 academic and 26 support staff, trains more than 100 postgraduate, 30 Honours and 500 undergraduate students. The department’s research focuses on marine biology, conservation biology, biodiversity, ecology, evolutionary biology, ornithology, paleobiology, physiology, and systematics.

UCT operates the IMTA lab in South Africa, along with partners at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and VIKING Aquaculture. The overall objective is to develop and validate cost-effective IMTA in land-based pump ashore systems. The UCT and DFFE are involved in several ASTRAL work packages due to their extensive scientific background in the aquaculture of seaweeds and the integrated aquaculture of seaweeds with marine invertebrates, animal welfare and biosecurity, and human capital development/training. The UCT and DFFE will play an integral role in the generation of new knowledge on existing abalone (Haliotis midae)-Ulva IMTA systems, the refinement of existing technologies to improve circularity, reduce waste, understand microbial dynamics, investigate new species combinations, improve sustainability and profitability; with the objective of promoting broader uptake of IMTA technology for the sustainable growth of the aquaculture sector, both locally and abroad.

The UCT and DFFE will further refine and develop technologies for the development of a new high-value aquaculture species Tripneustes gratilla and valued added products (improved feeds and feeding regimes) from IMTA systems. The data collected in the ASTRAL project will contribute towards the identification of best practices to implement IMTA.