AQUASERV – RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES FOR SUSTAINABLE AQUACULTURE, FISHERIES AND THE BLUE ECONOMY

The overarching objectives of AQUASERV are to bring together, enhance, integrate and customise RI capacities (including facilities, instruments and expertise) and through the provision of transnational access (on-site or remote) and/or virtual access, to significantly further scientific advance and promote and facilitate the implementation of European Common Fisheries Policy, the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Sustainable Blue Economy and the European Green Deal. AQUASERV will achieve these objectives by offering scientists from academia and business remote and on-site transnational (TA) and virtual (VA) access to an advanced set of European research infrastructures and its nodes related to research and management of marine and freshwater biological resources, food and biotechnology. These include the European Marine Biological Resource Centre ERIC (EMBRC), the Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems ERIC, The Aquaculture for Excellence for Aquaculture in Fish (Aquaexcel), and the Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition (METROFOOD), as well as the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, both a service provider and stakeholder. It also includes the Research Infrastructure for Science and Innovation Policy Studies (RISIS) to bring contributions from the social sciences and to bring results nearer to policy makers ensuring societal impact. To enhance, integrate and customise RI capacities, collaboration between partners and new pipelines to meet the objectives of the project will be developed during the first 3 years and will make available to users. To ensure these capacities will not be lost, a sustainability work package involving stakeholders will address the project legacy. To maximize impact, AQUASERV will build a communication network among the partnership and develop a dissemination and outreach programme. Furthermore, an advanced training programme will be developed to capture future users and will be updated during the p