Firms urged to take up offer of aquaculture research help
Small and medium-sized companies involved in aquaculture research and development are being encouraged to take advantage of an EU project that offers free access to 39 research infrastructures across Europe, ranging from laboratories to full-size cage systems and a wave tank in Norway.
John Bostock, MSc aquaculture programme director at Stirling University’s Institute of Aquaculture (IoA), is in charge of administration for the Transnational Access (TNA) project, which is part of the EU’s AQUAEXCEL 2020 initiative.
He pointed out that TNA not only gave participants access to facilities abroad, but also intellectual property and expertise they wouldn’t otherwise come across.
Open to private companies
“The majority of submitted projects are from university students and quite a few are from research organisations. But it’s completely open to private companies, too,” said Bostock.
The projects must be research-based, and although collaborative working is encouraged, SMEs are not obliged to publish results.
“The EU would like to see more SMEs making use of this facility,” said Bostock.
“The most attractive thing is they would get access to the intellectual property, contact with researchers.”
TNA involves a research group or SME in one country collaborating with one or more of the AQUAEXCEL 2020 infrastructures that are located in a different country to the applicant, and which offer facilities and expertise not available in their own country.
New applications
Applicants can propose projects that involve visits of one or in some cases two people to the chosen research infrastructure for up to three months. Access to the research infrastructures and associated travel and subsistence expenses will be paid.
The project takes new batches of applications every three months, and the 12th call for access is now open.
Projects related to the European Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform’s preferred areas of social licence, precision farming and resource efficiency are strongly encouraged, although applications outside these themes will also be considered.
Stirling’s Institute of Aquaculture is the only UK research infrastructure in the TNA project. Nine projects from abroad have so far been approved to use the IoA’s facilities.
For more information on the scheme, click here.
