The CPMR and its Atlantic Arc Commission took part in the kick off meeting for the ‘SAFER – Smart Atlantic Seafood Clusters’ project on 15 November, in Letterkenny, Donegal.

The SAFER project aims to improve the innovation performance of the seafood industry by increasing technology adoption and transnational cooperation to give response to the challenges faced by a sector identified as key for the smart growth of the participating Regions.

SAFER will drive innovation with a clear ambition of expanding the results into other Atlantic Area Regions, including Atlantic Canada, where this sector is considered as high-importance. The project will serve as a “capacity building” network to prepare the partnership to set up.

Specific objectives are to:

  • Create an innovation platform to sustain an effective transnational network of seafood clusters by putting in place the means that the network needs to effectively and sustainably drive innovation in a fast-moving network of SMEs and Applied Research Centres distributed across the Atlantic area
  • Increase the adoption of technology and collaboration within the seafood sector by using the innovation platform established to increase the level of collaboration and technology transfer. Living Lab pilots will be jointly implemented and evaluated in order to test the effectiveness of the platform
  • Serve as empirical input for the Regional Innovation Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3) of Atlantic regions where the seafood industry is a priority.

Co-funded by the European Union through the Atlantic Area Programme, SAFER is a three-year project led by ERNACT, and running from October 2017 to September 2020. It brings together partners from Bretagne (France), Border, Midlands and Western Regional Assembly (Ireland), Northern Ireland (UK), Norte (Portugal) and Cantabria (Spain).

This project is related to the Atlantic Arc Commission and CPMR’s work on fisheries and innovation. The CPMR is engaged in the project, in particular in leading a work package on capitalization and hosting the closing conference in 2020.

Find out more about the ‘SAFER – Smart Atlantic Seafood Clusters’ project