In 1955 Dr. D. V. Villadolid, then Director of Fisheries of the Republic of the Philippines, discussed with the Fisheries Division of FAO the need for more intensive and more practically oriented research on the fishery resources of the Philippines. Dr. Villadolid referred to the current status of fishery industries in his country, to problems confronting the extension of fishing operations to under-exploited or neglected resources and the improvement of efficiency of these operations and to the need for more systematic research that would result in more precise account of the accessible resources (location, magnitude and behaviour and changes in these characteristics) and in systems of prediction of these changes. These discussions led to a proposal for a project under Technical Assistance in which, using the tuna resources as example, training would be given to Philippine workers in the identification of problems in the planning of research programmes for elucidation of these matters, and in the techniques required for such research including, of course, the techniques of treatment of data and interpretation of results.