BBSRC Sustainable Aquaculture Partnerships for Innovation

Funding to bring academia and industry together to co-develop solutions to key innovation challenges impacting upon the sustainable growth of UK aquaculture.

This BBSRC collaborative research funding opportunity aims to build and strengthen partnerships between academia and industry. Enabling co-development of innovative solutions to key environmental sustainability challenges, this funding opportunity will support the productivity of UK aquaculture in current and novel systems.

Proposals are invited for collaborative research and development projects, feasibility and pilot studies, that explore the following challenges in the context of sustainable aquaculture:

• Environmental sustainability and climate change, including water quality, biodiversity, climate adaptation of farmed species.
• Gene editing and selective breeding, including translation of research and knowledge exchange from salmon to other farmed species.
• Species diversification, including the co-location of species, and multi-trophic, low trophic aquaculture or both
• Production and handling technologies, including remote monitoring/sensing and the sustainable scale-up of aquaculture systems, such as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) and recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS).
• Waste management and valorisation, including circular aquaculture and aqua-agri systems.
• Improving the health of farmed aquatic animals in a changing climate.
• Nutrition and feeding, including reducing reliance on fish meal and fish oil (FMFO), and the carbon impacts of aquafeeds.

Proposals may investigate single or multiple challenges.

The duration of the award is up to 24 months and are expected to projects start between 1 April and 30 June 2024.