Objective

Aqua-tnet is the European Thematic Network in the field of aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic resources management. The network is presently funded under the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme, running from 2011-2014.

Website:
http://www.aquatnet.com

Objective

The current lack of cost-effective and efficient cleaning technologies in both freshwater and marine larval hatchery tanks in recirculating aquaculture systems is a substantial drawback for both technology-providing and fish farming SMEs in Europe. Bacterial biofilms constantly and quickly develop on all surfaces in the tanks and endanger the production of high quality and quantity fry which is an absolute must for successful aquaculture operations in a growing, highly competitive market. Thus, there is an enormous need to find a sustainable technology for an efficient cleaning of the tank surfaces and the standpipe meshes. Meshes on the standpipe, which prevent the aquatic life from being sucked away from the water flow, need to be continuously replaced due to the formation of biofilms, resulting in high material and labour costs. CLEANHATCH aims to develop and implement a new technology that constantly sweeps the sides and base of the tanks as well as backwashes the meshes whilst injecting ozonated water into the tank directly over the tank surfaces. Compared to the state of the art, the new technology has the advantages of (a) cleaning the tank's sides, base and standpipe's meshes saving considerable man-hours, (b) disinfecting the surfaces and meshes through the focused injection of the ozonated water, (c) reduce the amount of mesh required and focus the mesh to the bottom part of the tank where the water is best extracted from. CLEANHATCH will develop, implement, test and optimise the new technology under pilot and real production conditions, aiming to achieve a marketable product within one year after project termination. The project is centred on complementary technological problems and innovation needs of the three participating SMEs. By providing technology applications that do not presently exist in the market, the project will bring the participating SMEs to the forefront of the hatchery technology market, strongly improving their competitive position.

Project reference: 262256

Status: Completed

Total cost: EUR 1 100 561

EU contribution: EUR 791 117

Programme acronym: FP7-SME

Subprogramme area: SME-1 

Contract type: Research for SMEs 

EC, R&I Success Stories:
 link

Open Data Platforms:
   

Objective

Today there is ±5 % error in estimation of biomass in fish farming. This represents 91M in loss for the European fish farming industry. Around 80 % of all sales of farmed fish are arranged pre-harvest. To make profit on the sale, farmers and processors are dependent on correct estimations of weight, size distribution and total biomass. Furthermore, fish feed constitutes 50 % of the production costs in fish farming. Cost of excess feeding is therefore high. It is a fact that European fish farmers have been facing serious competition from low cost countries during over the recent years, especially the sea bass and bream sector in southern Europe. The FishScan project will develop a novel system for continuous remote monitoring of weight, growth and size distribution of fish for use within aquaculture enclosures. The aim is to achieve an accuracy of 99 % in size measurements for fish > 1kg, and 97 % for fish at 100g. The FishScan system has a potential in aid a reduction from the current ±5 % to ±3 % error in biomass estimates. This represents increased profit of 40,445 p.a. per farm license and corresponds to economical benefits of 41M p.a. in increased profits for the European aquaculture industry. To achieve this, the FishScan project will: Increase knowledge of fish behaviour in net cages to enable representative sampling; Transferring Time-of-Flight (ToF) technology and software to an aquaculture setting; Design robust camera module & optimise LED power & positioning; Design translation system for movement of camera module in fish cage; Develop software for use underwater on fish; Develop LED driver to increase frequency from 20MHZ up to 40MHz to increase depth resolution of ToF data; Design control system for camera module movement, light settings and camera and image processing software; Integrate and validate the FishScan system to obtain a working prototype. The SMEs in the FishScan project expects a NPV (10yrs, 7 %) of 1.3M from the project.

Project reference: 262323 

Status: Completed 

Total cost: EUR 1 281 528

EU contribution: EUR 1 000 000

Programme acronym: FP7-SME

Subprogramme area: SME-1

Contract type: Research for SMEs

Open Data Platforms:
   

Objective

Agriculture in the European Union faces some serious challenges in the coming decades: competition for water resources, rising costs, competition for international markets, changes in climate and uncertainties in the effectiveness of current European policies as adaptation strategies. Greenhouse production appears as an alternative to face some of the upcoming challenges. In 2009, the surface dedicated to greenhouse production at worldwide level was up to 800kha, from which 20% belongs to Europe. This production is characterised by a climate conditions associated to fourth climate regions, which allows for diversity in technologies and practices used for greenhouse vegetable production. On the other hand, The EU is the main export destination with almost one-half of the world’s imports. In the period 2002-2008, fruit and vegetables imports have experimented a constantly growth (up to 39% for this period).Therefore, in order to ensure their competitiveness against producers from other Non-European countries with lower labour costs as Morocco, or Israel, European growers need to adopt new agricultural technologies to improve net production, ensure quality and reduce production costs. On the other hand, European aquaculture represents 20% of the total fish production. Major environmental impacts of aquaculture have been associated mainly with high-output of wastewater of intensive systems. In 2009, the Commission proposed a strategy for the future of the European aquaculture which includes new wastewater management strategies. In order to satisfy the needs of this two different sectors, Carbgrowth aims to:

- increase net production and tolerance to salinity through CO₂ injection
- recover CO₂ for injection by photocatalysis
- reusing industrial wastewater for irrigation purposes and reducing the cost associated to water supply, reduce charge loses in irrigation systems
- develop process control to optimise irrigation, CO₂ injection and greenhouse climate control

Project reference: 285854 

Status: Completed 

Total cost: EUR 2 344 551

EU contribution: EUR 1 864 819

Programme acronym: FP7-SME

Call for proposal: FP7-SME-2011

Funding scheme: BSG-SME-AG - Research for SME associations/groupings

Open Data Platforms
 

Objective

Aqua-tnet is the European Thematic Network in the field of aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic resources management. The network is presently funded under the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme, running from 2011-2014. The project will cover the following work packages:

- WP1 - European Master Cooperation

- WP2 - European PhD Collaboration

- WP3 - Aqua-tnet on the move (Mobility)

- WP4 - Generic skills for future success

- WP5 - Innovative Lifelong Learning

- WP6 - Stakeholder Cooperation

- WP7 - Dissemination and Outreach

- WP8 - Exploitation of Results

- WP9 - Quality Assurance

- WP10 - Project Management

Website:
http://www.aquatnet.com

Objective

Aquaculture is a recognised future option to provide animal protein to the increasing population since it is an efficient user of feed and water resources, and fish is a unique source of unsaturated fatty acids that have significant health benefits.

The Research Institute for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Irrigation (HAKI) is a regional centre of excellence and an important representative in various European initiatives aiming at aquaculture development. This has been recognised as an unexplored opportunity to contribute to the improvement of rural livelihoods in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, where the low technological level of fish farming provides significant scope for innovation.

The objective of the proposal is to strengthen the research potential of HAKI in order to become the leading research and innovation knowledge centre in the field of freshwater aquaculture development in the CEE region, which could subsequently act as a driving force of technological development and improvement of the fish product supply in the region. In the frame of the project, HAKI will acquire new knowledge, competencies in the field of research, innovation and Intellectual Property (IP) development, build strategic partnerships with outstanding research partner organisations, mobilise human resources, enhance research capacity and develop its research infrastructure. In order to achieve the enhancement of its innovation potential, HAKI will collaborate actively with three leading European research entities, an IP office and a SME during the implementation of the project activities.

Open Data Platforms:
 

Objective

Agricultural practices put the biggest pressure on fresh water resources for irrigation (55% of the water use in Europe) and on fertilizer usage. The European farmers face serious problems such as freshwater scarcity and nutrient availability, extreme climate conditions and the growing demand of the increasing population. This results in rising prices for mineral fertilizers and food, risky measures such as untreated wastewater applications on fields, and environmental damages from overexploitation of resources.
Even though important local efforts have been made on research activities and initiatives for wastewater treatment and reuse in agriculture, an integrated approach is needed among regions which are developing such research, incentivizing scientific, governmental and business collaboration within wastewater reuse in Europe and supporting the establishment of common European guidelines and parameters for water and nutrient exploitation efficiency.

In this sense, the main goal of this project is to develop technologies offering a transnational cooperation service within “research-driven clusters”, involving universities, regional authorities, research centres, technology developers, enterprises, farmers, and farmerA/s associations related to wastewater treatment and to agriculture from five different countries: Germany, Spain, Greece, Malta and Bulgaria. Such service will provide and facilitate exchange of know-how on alternatives for water and nutrient resources for all project members, create business opportunities in the area of focus and further expand support to stakeholders from countries outside the consortium.

Project reference: 319998

Status: Execution

Total cost: EUR 1 610 484

EU contribution: EUR 1 402 043

Programme acronym: FP7-REGIONS

Subprogramme area: REGIONS-2012-2013-1

Contract type: Coordination (or networking) actions

Website: www.suwanu.eu

Open Data Platforms:
 

Objective

The BYEFOULING project will address high volume production of low toxic and environmentally friendly antifouling coatings for mobile and stationary maritime applications. The technology will fulfil the coating requirements as a result of the incorporation of novel antifouling agents and a new set of binders into coating formulations for maritime transportation and fishing vessels, floating devices and aquaculture.

The main vision of BYEFOULING is to provide the means for industrial, cost-effective and robust manufacturing of antifouling coatings in Europe, where SMEs are both coating components developers and production technology providers. A set of procedures, guidelines and fabrication tools will be developed, enabling short time to market for new coating concepts. The main goal of BYEFOULING is to design, develop and upscale antifouling coatings with enhanced performance compared to current available products. The approach in BYEFOULING is to tackle the different stages of the biofouling process using innovative antifouling agents, covering surface-structured materials, protein adsorption inhibitors, quorum sensing inhibitors, natural biocides and microorganisms with antifouling properties. Encapsulation of the innovative compounds in smart nanostructured materials will be implemented to optimize coating performance and cost all along their life cycle. A proof-of-concept for the most promising candidates will be developed and demonstrators will be produced and tested on fields. BYEFOULING will combine a multidisciplinary leading research team from 11 European countries, which are already acting worldwide in the scientific community, with highly relevant and skilled technological partners, to build a consortium able to develop a full production line for antifouling coatings in Europe. Readily available low toxic and cost-effective antifouling coatings will increase the efficiency of maritime industry and be the enabling technology to realize new products.

Project reference: 612717

Status: In progress

Total cost: EUR 9 969 964

EU contribution: EUR 7 447 584

Programme acronym: FP7-KBBE

Subprogramme area: OCEAN 2013.3

Contract type: Collaborative project

Website: www.byefouling-eu.com

More info: 
 Byefouling Brochure

Open Data Platforms:
   

Objective

The objective of the EnviGuard project is to develop a highly specific and precise (i.e. quantitative and qualitative) in situ measurement device for currently hard to measure man-made chemical contaminants and biohazards (toxic microalgae, viruses & bacteria, biotoxins & PCBs) that can be used as an early warning system in aquaculture and as an environmental monitor to assess the good environmental status of the sea in compliance with the MSFD. It will be more cost-efficient than current monitoring devices leading to a clear marketing advantage for the European analytical and research equipment industry.

The modular system will consist of three different sensor modules (microalgae/pathogens/ toxins & chemicals) integrated into a single, portable device, which saves, displays and sends the collected data real time to a server by means of mobile data transmission and the internet. EnviGuard will be able to accomplish this also in real-time for a period of at least one week without maintenance in an offshore, marine surrounding. User of EnviGuard can access their data online any time they need to. Potential fields of use are marine environment pollution monitoring, marine research and quality control in seawater aquaculture, a sector in Europe highly occupied by SMEs. The biosensors developed in the project go far beyond the current state-of-the art in terms of accuracy, reliability and simplicity in operation by combining innovations in nanotechnology and molecular science leading to the development cutting edge sensor technology putting European research and highly innovative SMEs in the forefront of quickly developing markets.

Project reference: 614057

Status: In progress

Total cost: EUR 7 177 126,82

EU contribution: EUR 5 523 461

Programme acronym: FP7-KBBE

Subprogramme area: OCEAN 2013.1

Website: www.enviguard.net

More info: 
 EnviGuard Brochure

Open Data Platforms: