As the world population is continuously increasing, the supply of food with equal accessibility has become a major issue and future challenge. Microbes are unexploited tool to increase food productivity and quality. The objective of SIMBA project is to harness complex soil and marine microbial communities (microbiomes) for the sustainable production of food. SIMBA will focus on two interconnected food chains, i.e. crop production, aquaculture. SIMBA will first launch an in silico phase in order to analyze the further pre-existing microbiome databases and earlier studies, to identify the best microbiome layout capable of supporting food chain quality and productivity. Microbiome-tailored interventions will be specifically developed including soil, plant, fish, aquaculture and food/feed processing towards optimal layout as defined in the modelling step, as follows: i) Identified optimal microbiome consortia will be designed and tested in lab, pot and field trials to improve plant productivity and health; ii) Marine microbiomes will be applied to facilitate sustainable aqua and agriculture; iii) Optimal microbe/microbe consortia will be used to convert raw-materials and residuals to high quality food, feed or finally to energy. In a final intervention step, these interactions will be monitored and tested in field, aqua-culturing, fish feeding and human studies, measuring the impact on microbiome consortia, interactions in association with factors evaluating their efficacy in terms of improving food security, productivity, quality, safety, sustainability, nutritional and health aspects. "Near to market” microbiome applications for sustainable food systems will be provided thanks to the interdisciplinary and cross-sectional nature of the proposal and the active role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

ILIAD builds on the assets resulting from two decades of investments in policies and infrastructures for the blue economy and aims at establishing an interoperable, data-intensive, and cost-effective Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO). It capitalizes on the explosion of new data provided by many different earth sources, advanced computing infrastructures (cloud computing, HPC, Internet of Things, Big Data, social networking, and more) in an inclusive, virtual/augmented, and engaging fashion to address all Earth Data challenges. It will contribute towards a sustainable ocean economy as defined by the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Ocean, a hub for global, multistakeholder co-operation. The ILIAD DTO will fuse a large volume of diverse data, in a semantically rich and data agnostic approach to enable simultaneous communication with real world systems and models. Ontologies and a standard style-layered descriptor will facilitate semantic information and intuitive discovery of underlying information and knowledge to provide a seamless experience. The combination of geovisualisation, immersive visualization and virtual or augmented reality allows users to explore, synthesize, present, and analyze the underlying geospatial data in an interactive manner. The enabling technology of the ILIAD DTO will contribute to the implementation of the EU?s Green Deal and Digital Strategy and to the achievement of the UN Ocean Decade's outcomes and Sustainable Development Goals. To realize its potential, ILIAD DTO will follow the System of Systems approach, integrating all existing EU Earth Observing and Modelling Digital Infrastructures and Facilities To promote additional applications through ILIAD DTO, the partners will create the ILIAD Marketplace. Like an app store, providers will use the ILIAD Marketplace to distribute apps, plug-ins, interfaces, raw data, citizen science data, synthesized information, and value-adding services derived from the ILIAD DTO.

EU society needs new sustainable biobased feedstock in order to meet the growing population needs and to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. In terms of potential market requirements in EU, the food and fuel demand is mainly covered by foreign import, achieving the 68% of total proteins supply. Aquatic feedstock can be a solution to these necessities, however, European algae feedstock market is still facing immature production technologies, and which are not specifically designed for algae biorefinery. The overall objective of BIOSEA is the development and validation of innovative, competitive and cost-effective upstream and downstream processes for the cultivation of 2 microalgae (Spirulina platensis and Isochrysis galbana), and 2 macroalgae (Ulva intestinalis and Saccharina latissima) to produce and extract at least 6 high value active principles at low cost (up to 55% less than with current processes) to be used in food, feed and cosmetic/personal care as high-added value products. For achieving this objective, BIOSEA consortium consists of specialists in specific area/s or discipline/s involved in the project (IGV, AT SEA and CTAQUA in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology; VITO and FEYECON in Chemical Science and Engineering; CNTA, BIOPOLIS, DIBAQ, SORIA NATURAL and CPCFEED in Food/Feed Technology; VLCI and HENKEL in Cosmetic Science; AITEX in Materials Science and TABU in Environmental Science). The total budget of BIOSEA is up to €4,633,447, so it is totally aligned with the range considered in the topic. It can be added that the industrial contribution will be up to €2,611,321, representing a percentage of 44% of the total budget and indicating the strong weight and involvement of the industry in the proposal.

SUCCESS is bringing together an integrated team of scientists from all fields of fisheries and aquaculture science with industry partners and key stakeholders to work on solutions which shall improve the competitiveness of the European fisheries and aquaculture sector. The supply-side of seafood markets is limited from both sea fisheries and aquaculture. At the same time demand for seafood products is increasing. In a globalised economy, the conjunction of these two trends should generate high opportunities for any seafood production activity. However, both fisheries and aquaculture companies are facing key challenges, which currently hinder them reaping the full benefits of seafood markets expansion, and even question their sustainability. As a whole, the EU fisheries sector remains at low levels of profitability and sustainability. The SUCCESS project will examine two strategies to improve the competitiveness of the sector: (i) increasing demand for EU seafood products, especially improving the awareness of the advantages of European production (including sustainability requirements and adjustment to market evolution); and (ii) cost reduction in certain production segments. For both strategies development on world markets as well as consumer preferences and awareness will be analysed. Additionally, SUCCESS will explore the different sectors along the value chain (from fisheries and aquaculture producers via processing companies, wholesalers, retailers to direct marketing to mobile fishmongers and restaurants) and their potential for improvements in competitiveness. These analyses also include long term predictions about the viability of certain production systems and will be considered in specific case studies on for example mussel production, shrimp fisheries, whitefish, traditional pond aquaculture and new aquaculture production systems.