Selected for funding by ERA-NET Cofund on Blue Bioeconomy
María Guðjónsdóttir, professor at the University of Iceland's Faculty of Food Science and Nutrition recently received a 116 million krona grant from the BlueBio Cofund Call. The BlueBio Cofund is the result of a collaboration between JPI Oceans and the former ERA-NETS COFASP and ERA MBT and consists of 27 partners from 16 countries. The projects that are funded were supposed to explore innovative, sustainable and climate-friendly utilisation of aquatic biomass at different trophic levels, as well as sustainable harvesting, and novel aquaculture production systems targeting a range of existing or new markets. Proposed projects needed to demonstrate industry involvement.
Maria's project, BIOZOOSTAIN, focuses on sustainability in utilization and product development of calanus and krill, a side product in the fishing of pelagic species. The University of Iceland's collaborators in the project are Landspítali University Hospital – the Icelandic Blood Bank, Matís, DTU-Aqua in Denmark, the University of Bologna in Italy, and Universitat Politecnica de Valencia in Spain. Collaborators from industry are SVN herring processing in Neskaupsstaður and FF Sagen in Denmark. The grant allows for the training of both doctoral and master students, scheduled to begin this month.
Further information on the ERA-NET cofund on the blue bioeconomy can be found here.
