HiAOOS sister project secures funding from SBEP
It is with great pleasure that we have learned that HiAOOS sister project, ARCFISH will be successfully funded under the new EC funding instrument, the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership (SBEP). According to their website, “The Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership represents an unprecedent effort of 60 Partner institutions from 25 countries and the European Commission to pool research and innovation investments and align national programmes at pan-European scale. As a Horizon Europe co-funded partnership, its strategy takes into consideration the R&I agendas of the sea basins (Mediterranean, Black Sea, Baltic and North Sea) and the Atlantic Ocean and builds on lessons learned from previous initiatives.”SBEP launched the first of six co-funded calls in March 2023, with the results of the first call announced at the end of the year.
ARCFISH – Digital Twin of the Ocean for Arctic Fisheries was one of the nineteen successful projects retained for funding during the first call. ARCFISH will develop a pilot Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) Platform delivering new data products and services in support of sustainable Arctic Fisheries. These data products and services will be co-designed with stakeholders in the fisheries sector and used to create products such as ecosystem indices that can be applied in fisheries planning and management. Available data sources and gaps will be analysed to fulfil user needs and ingest relevant data into the Blue Insight DTO Platform.
ARCFISH brings together some familiar faces from the HiAOOS partnership: Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NO), Kongsberg Discovery (NO), Instytut Oceanologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk (PL), EurOcean (PT), together with some new collaborators: Aarhus Universitet (DK), Matís Ohf (IS), Trackwell hf (IS), and Brim hf (IS).
The project is due to start in the first half of 2024, so watch this space for updates.
Check out the ARCFISH poster featured during the recent Sustainable Blue Economy Symposium:
*Main Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash