Great potential for Norwegian aquaculture in a European context
The EU's own production volume from aquaculture is marginal compared to Norway's, especially after Brexit. At the same time, the EU is the largest recipient of Norwegian salmon and a significant proportion of salmon is further processed in the Union. DG Mare (Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries) has stated that changing policy guidelines and strategic documents to include aquaculture has taken time. They want involvement from the industry to continue to elevate aquaculture as a strong contributor to achieving sustainability and climate goals for the future.
"Norwegian interests in the EU are great and even though Norway is not a member of the EU, we must to a large extent relate to the regulations that are shaped by the Commission. This requires significant efforts from several sides, and our role is to ensure that aquaculture continues to be promoted as an important contribution to achieving the EU's political ambitions," says EU advisor and project manager for AquaMare Ann Cecilie Hilling.
The national EU network AquaMare is an important collaboration arena
Since 2016, the EU network AquaMare (funded by the Research Council) has worked strategically to strengthen the Norwegian aquaculture industry's participation in research projects at EU level. The network has brought together the clusters NCE Aquaculture, NCE Aquatech, NCE Seafood and Stiim Aquacluster with its members and has given them the opportunity to pool their EU expertise, share experiences, mobilize and provide collective input to strategic processes in the EU through EATIP (European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform). Ann Cecilie Hilling (NCE Aquaculture) points out that such a national EU network is central to providing support services that build on and strengthen already established national and regional services and is central to cooperation with the clusters.
Synergy effect will increase the possibility of participation in Horizon Europe
At the same time as AquaMare works with many of the larger processes at the EU level, the NCE Seafood and NCE Aquaculture clusters have together been granted EU advisory resources to work more specifically with companies that have ambitions to apply for research funding from the EU.
We see that there is a need to work more in depth with the individual company that has a potential EU project in mind. The synergy effect between the work in AquaMare and the newly created EU advisory resources will be very positive, says EU advisor at NCE Seafood Cathrine Ulvatne. The EU system can be resource-intensive for the individual company to understand.
We want to provide advice and contribute to understanding to lower the threshold for companies that want to apply.
Contact information :
Cathrine Ulvatne
NCE Seafood
Tel. +47 93 20 18 51
LinkedIn
Ann Cecilie Hilling
NCE Aquaculture AS
Tel: +47 90 13 37 29
LinkedIn
Fact box:
EATIP EATIP is an international non-profit association dedicated to developing, supporting and promoting aquaculture and, especially and specifically, technology and innovation in aquaculture in Europe.
Horizon Europe is the largest framework programme for research and innovation to date, with a total budget of 94 billion euros.
Horizon Europe will start in January 2021, but the first calls are expected in autumn 2020.
Support for EU advisors is provided for one year at a time for a maximum of three years.
