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The 150th anniversary of Johan Hjort's birth was celebrated by a symposium held in Bergen on 12–14 June 2019 to take a broad perspective on the origins of, and developments in, fisheries science and thereby examine current issues in fisheries science from different perspectives. To establish this type of non-traditional forum, historians of marine science and marine researchers from around the world met to explore potential new directions. The many transdisciplinary panel discussions, especially on subjects such as "the making of fisheries scientists", revealed the pervading influence of family, educators, role models, and social circumstances. The 11 articles included in this symposium issue present a series of advancements in modern fisheries science, highlighting the contributions of Hjort and his contemporaries, Fyodor Baranov and Harald Dannevig. As expected, the effects of changing ocean climate were a dominant theme, which connected this symposium, and complemented, the 2014 symposium in honour of Johan Hjort's influential treatise released in 1914. Although no ground-breaking paradigms were presented, several new research directions were proposed in a creative atmosphere generated by participants. The social context of science had a key influence in Hjort's day and continues to do so today and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]