innovation brokering event and National open day in organization of Ariel+
Innovation Brokering Event and National Open Day on funding opportunites for Small-Scale Fisheries and Aquaculture within the EU Programme Period 2021–2027 were held in Hotel “Cattaro” in the Kotor Old Town on Monday, 6 June 2022, within the activities of the Interreg ADRION project ARIEL PLUS and organised by Institute of Marine Biology of the University of Montenegro, one of project partners.
Innovation Brokering Event is a kind of event where participants, through discussion, suggest and develop innovative ideas which have the potential to be tested in practice, whether as an idea for future project application or as a basis for innovation funding through some other available means available to the interested parties. From a series of topics realted to small-scale fisheries and aquaculture, the participants focused on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and artificial reefs, mobile fish markets, technologically advanced platforms for use in aquaculture, and organising acters in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in producer cooperatives (Blue Growth Cluster) with the aim of improving the demand-supply chain and achieving added value in seafood products.
During the National Open Day on funding opportunites for Small-Scale Fisheries and Aquaculture within the EU Programme Period 2021–2027 part of the event, Mr Miloš Marković, national ADRION contact point from the Ministry of European Affairs explained the IPA ADRION Programme period 2021–2027 and the signifficant increase in funding for the non-EU Programme Countries compared to the previous programming period (2014–2020), in which a total of 70.5 million euro will be available to them. Programme priorities in the IPA ADRION Programming period 2021–2027 are Smarter Europe, Greener and Low-Carbon Europe, More Connected Europe, and Support to EU Strategy for Adriatic-Ionian Region. These priorities, particularily Smarter Europe are fully in agreement with the idea of Blue Growth and aimed at development of Blue Technologies, small-scale fisheries and aquaculture. The Priorities of greener and Low-Carbon Europe related to SSF and AQ include promoting transition towards circular economy and improvements in waste management.
The ARIEL PLUS project is based on the capitalisation of achievements of the “Promoting small scale fisheries and aquaculture transnational networking in Adriatic-Ionian macroregion” – ARIEL (2018–2020), and reunites six of the original nine project partners from four countries (Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Montenegro): National Research Council – institute for Biological Resources and Marine Biotechnologies (CNR–IRBIM, Italy), Marche Region (Italy), Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries – Split (Croatia), Public Institution RERA SD for Coordination and Development of Split-Dalmatia County (Croatia), Region of Western Greece (Greece) and Institute of Marine Biology, University of Montenegro (Montenegro).