There is strong interest from European partners to learn from our cluster in their effort to give a direction to research and innovation projects for sustainable aquaculture growth in Europe.

Bilde 1 The first semester of 2018 has seen The Seafood Innovation Cluster recognised as a trusted innovation leader for sustainable aquaculture in Europe through partnering with top European consortia in concrete projects (total value € 21 million) and strategic European networks for research and industrial innovation.

This shows strong interest from European partners to learn from our cluster in their effort to give a direction to research and innovation projects for sustainable aquaculture growth in Europe. The results we produce in the cluster are considered critical for the EU’s forthcoming strategy to become self-sufficient in seafood, an ambitious target considering that the EU today imports over 60% of seafood products.

European projects

From 2017 we started collaborating systematically with Europe’s most innovative consortia to develop innovation projects in Aquaculture 4.0 and build our project pipeline for 2019 with new concepts for multi-use of marine space, new monitoring tools for sea and fish health, genetics and the blue bio-economy. In June 2018 our cluster partners won all three of the EU’s Aquaculture 4.0 projects (total value ~ 18 million).

iFISHiency

In June 2018 the UniResearch-led iFishIENCi consortium (Intelligent Fish feeding through Integration of ENabling technologies and Circular principle) was awarded € 6 million (60 million NOK) from the EU’s H2020 programme to provide the global aquaculture industry with smart solutions for sustainable growth. The Seafood Innovation Cluster joined as a partner to secure commercial viability.

Read more here. 

FutureEUAqua

In June 2018 the Nofima- led FutureEUAqua consortium also was awarded € 6 million (60 million NOK) from the EU’s H2020 programme. The overall objective of FutureEUAqua is to effectively promote sustainable growth of resilient to climate changes, environmental friendly organic and conventional aquaculture of major fish species and low trophic level organisms in Europe, to meet future challenges with respect to the growing consumer demand for high quality, nutritious and responsibly produced food.

Read more here. Bilde 2 Bilde 3 Strategic positioning

From February to June 2018 we took part in a series of strategic workshops organised by European decision-makers, the Aquaculture Advisory Council and the European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform (EATIP) to build on the Food from the Oceans report and develop EU’s policy for sustainable and competitive aquaculture. These workshops are attended by 40-60 key stakeholders and are crucial in determining the EU’s strategy and policy development.

New EU policy to increase the sustainability and competitiveness of European aquaculture

In 2017 we started engaging with the European Commission’s Scientific Advisory Mechanism to establish the scientific evidence base for the EU’s policy on sustainable aquaculture which resulted in the “Food from the Oceans” report. The report underlined notably the fact that to obtain more food and biomass sustainably from the ocean, harvesting should focus on lower trophic level.

In March 2018 we participated in the European Parliament’s Seas cross-party group workshop to discuss measures to promote sustainability of aquaculture and in May 2018 we participated in the Aquaculture Advisory Council’s meeting to discuss concrete ways to promote the competitiveness of European aquaculture including trade standards.
In June 2018 this resulted in a Parliamentary report calling on the European Commission to develop and propose concrete EU policy to promote sustainable and competitive aquaculture growth in Europe. Follow-up work is already underway in the European Commission and we expect the proposal to be published during the new mandate starting in 2019.

Read more here.

Leading European research and industrial innovation collaboration

In May and June 2018, The Seafood Innovation Cluster was elected as a member of the Board of Directors for JPI Oceans, the Joint Programming Initiative of European Research Councils and EATIP, the European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform for industrial innovation.

Read more here and here. Bilde 4