Grant Map EU

The European Commisson’s Blue Growth agenda for the Baltic Sea Region identifies aquaculture as one of the most promising sectors of the region’s maritime economy in terms of growth and job potential. In the South Baltic area, however, aquaculture is not a widespread established sector yet. There is also a clear territorial disparity in introducing innovative and environmentally friendly production technologies that could help to create added-value and increase the sector’s international competitiveness. InnoAquaTech seeks to contribute to the cross-border development and transfer of such innovative and sustainable aquaculture technologies across the South Baltic area and offer SMEs all over the region access to state-of-the-art technology, know-how, expertise and financing models. Departing from the results of AQUAFIMA and SUBMARINER, special emphasis will be given to recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and innovative combinations of RAS systems with e.g. plant production (aquaponic systems) and/or renewable energy production. The project partners will • identify best practices of integrated aquaculture systems and evaluate their agroeconomic and environmental impact, • develop and implement an SME service package (consisting of e.g. matchmaking events, trainings, study visits and an innovation check tool) that shall be sustained by a South Baltic aquaculture alliance beyond the project lifetime, • implement four aquaculture pilot cases to gain hands-on experience on the actual regional potential of different innovative and sustainable aquaculture systems. InnoAquaTech will result in an increased innovation capacity of the project’s target group, which consists of SMEs along the aquaculture and aquaponic value chain as well as related support organisations. By directly involving them in the project implementation, InnoAquaTech will help SMEs to develop and implement cross-border value chains that strengthen the South Baltic area’s aquaculture sector as a whole.