IntegraSea is in line with the EU Blue Growth Agenda, in seeking to develop and evaluate new opportunities for sustainable aquaculture development. The increasing interest in the incorporation of seaweed-based extracts into ‘natural’ products has created a new market for seaweed. While strong competition for terrestrial space is a constraint, offshore cultivation is growing fast, and Portugal shows potential for expansion. Furthermore, the need to comply with environmental standards is directing fish producers to consider Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) systems where seaweeds are integrated as a valuable crop and as waste bioprocessing means. Another potential advantage of large scale cultivation of seaweed is its integration with bivalve production. Several seaweed species have demonstrated allelopathy potential, inhibiting the growth of Harmful Microalgae which often lead to prolonged closures of bivalve production in Portugal, and across the EU. This project will focus on an innovative holistic approach to offshore cultivation of high value native seaweed species, together with their bioremediation and HABs’ mitigation potential in order to maximise economic and environmental benefits. The work will be carried out between IMPA and CCMAR facilities, two organisations leaders in aquaculture research in Portugal, and where all the conditions for the projects’ successful completion are gathered. Results will be reported in relevant scientific meetings, published in open access peer reviewed international journals, and made accessible to the stakeholders in the aquaculture industry, policy makers and the general public. This fellowship will contribute to the researcher’s career development, by expanding her research and complementary skills, improving the ability of the experienced researcher to attract EU and national research funding in the future.

While downward mantle flow (subduction) is well constrained, a grand challenge in Earth sciences is to understand deep upward flow that cannot be explained by plate tectonics. The aim of UPFLOW is to develop an entirely new seismic imaging approach and to use it to constrain plume-like mantle upwellings at unprecendented resolution. Upward flow is critical for continental growth, for returning volatiles to the atmosphere and for producing Earth's largest melting events. These events coincide with major extinctions, supercontinent breakups and with changes in geodynamo behaviour. Seismology has come far by using travel-time and waveform (phase) information but has mostly ignored the amplitude information. Mantle plumes have just started to be robustly imaged, yet resolution is low and uncertainty quantification is lacking. I developed breakthrough seismic imaging methods based on big amplitude data, showing their strong resolution. With recent computing resources and explosion in datasets, it is now timely to use this unique expertise to lead a step change in observational seismology: rather than relying on pre-defined observables (e.g., travel-times), objective statistical techniques exploring the full richness of the data will be used to design observables that provide optimal constraints on Earth structure. I will lead a new off-shore experiment in the Azores-Madeira-Canary islands region, which is an under-studied natural laboratory comprising significant mantle upwellings that are poorly understood in general. The imaging technique to be developed will be applied to these new data and to existing data (Hawaii, Reunion) to obtain the sharpest ever images of mantle plumes along with their interdisciplinary interpretation. These results will have a major impact far beyond the study regions and across Earth Sciences (e.g., geology, geochemistry, geodynamics) since they will reveal ubiquitous, fundamental phenomena that control the global evolution of the planet.

Skeletal anomalies in farmed fish are a continuous problem for global aquaculture, affecting fish welfare, performance, and product quality. Aquaculture research has made considerable progress in reducing the incidence of deformities, but new species, intensified production, the damned for sterile fish, delicate early life stages and new fish feed ingredients are a continuous challenge. The use of zebrafish (Danio rerio) and medaka (Oryzias latipes) as models for research into human skeletal diseases such as osteoporosis, osteopetrosis and degenerative joint diseases is increasing, however their potential as models for farmed fish has not been sufficiently explored. These models offer the possibility to obtain deeper insights into the fundamental mechanisms that can cause skeletal malformations in humans and in farmed fish. A framework for communication and scientific exchange between the aquaculture and biomedical sectors would benefit all stakeholders and advance scientific understanding of the problem. We propose a joint inter-sectorial training network to increase the mobility and visibility of scientists between aquaculture research and the biomedical sector using small fish models. The proposed ESR programs will provide career development to young researchers in the field of skeletal biology through international and multidisciplinary training on innovative molecular, histological, biochemical and cell culture methodologies relevant to both sectors. The network combines stakeholders from 7 European Universities, a US research hospital, and one Biological Institute. Commercial interests are represented by two Economy departments, one aquaculture and a major fish feed production company. This structure allows the flow of information and people between the biomedical and aquaculture sectors, and between academic and applied sectors, thus addressing several objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy and ensuring a direct route from knowledge to application.

The societal need for sustainable exploitation of aquatic resources, requires support to monitoring need to ensure sustainable fishing, increasingly resorting to aquaculture, and a tighter control on fishing activities provides an opportunity for commercial EO services in this area. Based on Copernicus and GEOSS data and resources, it is now possible to implement commercially-oriented services for 1) fishing authorities wishing to have an improved control over marine resources; 2) responsible fishing companies willing to certify their compliance to sustainability by ecolabeling fish provenance; 3) the fast growing aquaculture industry assessing their risks and potential revenues; and 4) aquaculture regulators in understanding the impact of fish farms, in order to decide based on bespoke scientific solutions. NextOcean is proposed by a consortium of companies, research institutions, a business school and a buyers group supporting the development of innovative services. It targets fishing and aquaculture by proposing EO commercial services for the public and private sectors. It builds on past activities, proposing an integrated solution. The services will address 4User Scenarios: Monitoring Fishing Activities and Impact; Mimisation of Bycatch and Ecolabeling; Monitoring Aquaculture Impacts; and New Fish Farms. The involvement of the potential clients is done progressively, with an initial group of Alpha Users already engaged, supporting co-design of solutions. The buyers group is then enlarged to a wider group of beta testers and potential clients, who will define further evolutions, and the path to integration into their decision-making processes. NextOcean will define clear KPIs and success criteria for the services, including on the integration in the value chain. Dedicated workshops and training sessions will be held with the larger community, where the services will be advertised, explained and assessed in light of the interests and knowledge of the communities

The EMSODEV general objective is to catalyse the full operations of the EMSO distributed Research Infrastructure, through the development and deployment of the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). EGIM will provide accurate, consistent, comparable, long-term measurements of ocean parameters, which are key to addressing urgent societal and scientific challenges (e.g. climate change and hazards). This will lead to an increased interoperability of EMSO nodes and to the common collection of ocean essential variable time series. The specific objectives are: (1) to design and implement a state-of-the-art, standardized multidisciplinary EGIM, a common, harmonized, observation system; (2) to fully test, calibrate, validate and assess the effectiveness of this innovative module in order to ensure its maximum quality, long-term durability, and reliability; (3) to strengthen the data management and delivery backbone of the EMSO RI; this will require a coordinated approach to data capture, archiving, management, and delivery, in turn spurring the development of a wide range of data products and services; (4) to promote the uptake of the project results and public-private partnerships establishing links with industry and SMEs for technology transfer. These objectives will be achieved through: (a) Research & Innovation activities focused on the design, development, test, replication and deployment of EGIMs at EMSO nodes and data management system implementation; (b) Communication, dissemination and exploitation activities aimed at disseminating and facilitating the uptake of the project results, and setting up activities to increase the innovation potential of EMSODEV technological output, and to explore EGIM commercialization. All these activities are in line with those listed in the part B of the section “Specific features for Research Infrastructures”. The consortium includes 11 multi-skilled partners, with two industries, ensuring the fulfilment of the objectives.