Summary

The workshop is hosted by the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). The venue is the Natural History Museum in Oslo (Norway) and the max number of participants is 30. Co-convenors are Bengt Karlson and Wenche Eikrem.  Co-organisers are the ICES-IOC WGHABD, the European IFCB user network and the Nordic Marine Phytoplankton group. A scientific steering committee will be established for planning the detailed agenda. The main aims of the workshop are to share experiences of using automated plankton imaging methods for observing harmful algae in near real time and to train new users on the technology. This includes discussing practical aspects of operating automated imaging systems such as the Imaging FlowCytoBot and applying novel AI-based methods for automated recognition of plankton in images acquired. Another aspect is sharing annotated images in a systematic way to improve the availability of training data for Convoluted Neural Networks. Also standardizing data flows is an important aspect of the workshop.