SFI Harvest - Technologies for sustainable biomarine value creation

SFI Harvest is a centre for research-based innovation. Our ambition is to develop scientific and technological knowledge for the responsible harvesting and processing of underexploited species and allowing a sustainable growth of Norway’s biomarine industries. This will be achieved by developing new technologies to contribute to solving the global challenges that is providing food to a growing population, in a sustainable manner. The centre’s R&D activities will be anchored within six research areas: 1. Characterisation: To be able to count and find the low trophic organisms, we will develop survey technology for cost-efficient mapping and monitoring of marine species. 2. Ecosystem dynamics: Quality data from surveys will be used to develop a model for predicting good fishing grounds, and long-term prediction of ecosystem dynamics as input to fisheries management, 3. Fisheries planning: We will develop decision support systems allowing fishermen to save fuel and time, and predict catch potential, 4. Environmental-friendly harvesting: There is a need for selective and energy-efficient fishing gears and on-board technology to separate the catch by species, and preserve quality, 5. Processing and product development: New processes for land-based feed and food ingredient will be developed, allowing for total utilisation and value creation from the harvested biomass, 6. Sustainable fisheries management: We will provide quality-assured input to a governance regime for the new fisheries, and a sustainability assessment tool for the value chains based on the new marine resources. The long-term goal is to harvest more from the oceans without overexploiting the resources or adding to the pollution problem. The technologies developed will support cross-over applications for other marine challenges, for instance to detect and remove marine plastics. The SFI Harvest days will be an annual event. These days will be a useful arena for presenting and sharing research results within the centre and identifying possible innovations.

The ocean hosts large number of species that could improve food security, but are currently either not harvested or only marginally utilised. SFI Harvest will develop knowledge and technologies for harvesting and processing of lower-trophic marine species to enable sustainable growth of Norway's biomarine industries. It will draw upon Norway's leading position in the ocean and offshore sectors, bringing together pioneering shipowners, key technology providers, producers of aqua feed and -raw materials, SINTEF Ocean and other strong research groups, including SFF AMOS. The centre’s industry partners will form an innovation board to speed up the time-to-market of innovations based on the centre’s activities. The centre integrates six research areas: Survey technology, Ecosystem dynamics, Decision support, Harvesting technology, Product development, and Business models. The main outcomes of the centre’s activities will be sensor technology for cost-efficient mapping and monitoring of marine species, a model predicting good fishing grounds and variability in the ecosystem, decision support allowing fishermen to save fuel and time, predicting catch potential, selective and energy-efficient fishing gears, on-board processing lines for separating the catch by species and preserving quality, rapid catch quality measurement, new land-based feed and food ingredient processes, guidelines for resource allocation and vertical value chain coordination, and a sustainability assessment tool for value chains. This will enable the sustainable harvesting of new marine species and the establishment of a new biomarine value chain. Further, the centre will enable Norway to lead the technological development for the mesopelagic and low-trophic fisheries, creating new global market opportunities for the centre’s industrial partners. The technologies developed will also support cross-over solutions for today's commercial fisheries and for challenges like removing plastic from the oceans.