His Ph.D. thesis at the University of Stirling was entitled "The physiology of circulation during swimming activity in rainbow trout" for which he received the Huxley Prize of the Zoological Society of London.

[7][8] In Scotland, Priede was a member of the Council of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and has served on two inquiries by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Inquiry into the future of the Scottish Fishing Industry (2004)[9] and The Scientific issues Surrounding the control of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) in Scotland (2002).

Using unique ingestible transmitters Priede tracked the swimming speeds of grenadier fishes and found that they are continuously moving across the abyssal plains dispersing over large distances.

[19] These international expeditions formed part of the 2000-2010 Census of Marine Life (CoML) Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystem (MARECO) project.

The team mapped and sampled large areas around the Charlie-Gibbs fracture zone discovering new species including unusual free-living Hemichordate, acorn worms.