The Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is acknowledged as a promising solution for the sustainable development of aquaculture. However, IMTA has been only tested at very small scale in Europe, while management of large-scale IMTA areas remains difficult. The high level ambition of Impaqt project is to drive a paradigm shift in the EU Industry and its , paving the way to both a more environmentally friendly and more efficient/higher yielding European Industry. To that respect, Impaqt proposes an intelligent management platform for IMTA. Impaqt will develop and deploy novel sensors and data sources, together with smart systems required for long term autonomous monitoring in the field. An advanced IMTA model will be provided which yields spatially explicit information on how the different farm components interact with the environment on the scale of an ecosystem and that can be used for planning decisions by both farmers and regulators. Last but not least, an integrated management system, operating at the scale of an IMTA farm and comprising analytics and decision support functionalities, will be developed to enable enhanced operational decisions for animal welfare, production optimization, environmental protection and food quality assessment. Impaqt systems and models will be validated in 6 pilots (Scotland, The Netherlands, Ireland, Turkey and China), addressing inland, coastal and offshore aquaculture. Impaqt will demonstrate the eco-intensification of EU aquaculture, by demonstrating the eco-efficiency and the environmental impacts minimized, the socioeconomic benefits and ecosystem services enabled, as well as the transition towards a circular economy business model. Impaqt brings together a considerable range of partners including 14 academic/research organizations, 4 SMEs and 3 large industries, all leaders in their respective fields/business, while aims to effectively transfer the project’s results to relevant stakeholders through training activities.

"DiTECT will develop an integrated framework for real-time detection, assessment, and mitigation of biological, chemical and environmental contaminants throughout the food supply chain. Bringing together research, industrial and food authority partners representing the agro-food industry in the EU and China, DiTECT aspires to establish the foundation for future food safety monitoring platforms, through the development of a standards-based, modular, Big Data-enabled platform, capable of accurately predicting food safety parameters of a given food product based on data collected in real-time via cost-efficient sensors, at crop, grain storage, livestock and finally in the food supply, incorporating blockchain processes. DiTECT integrates multidisciplinary research teams from fields such as microbial and spectroscopic fingerprinting technologies; emerging ICT-based food tracing systems; signal analysis and data mining. Microbial profiling will be attained via conventional microbiological analyses in tandem with advanced molecular methods (e.g., NGS-based metagenomics), while spectroscopic profiling will be based on spectral data generated using appropriate rapid, non-invasive methods and sensor devices. DiTECT recognizes that current food-chains are lacking a complete snapshot view of food safety at the crop/livestock and finished product levels, and so foresees the development of a cloud-enabled storage system for all data corresponding to different insights of product-specific safety aspects, to be integrated into. The novel food safety services will be demonstrated in four (4) real-world Pilots with the active engagement of 21 EU and 13 CN partners, using real datasets to validate efficiency improvements. The carefully structured work plan embodies a “multi-actor” approach to prototype and validates a ready-for-take-up framework of significant exploitation potential for the agro-food industry."

The AquaSpace project has the goal of providing increased space for aquaculture to allow increased production. Following the call, we will achieve this by identifying the key constraints experienced by aquaculture development in a wide range of contexts and aquaculture types, taking into account all relevant factors and advised by a Reference User Group. We will then map these constraints against a wide variety of tools/methods that have already been developed in national and EU projects for spatial planning purposes, including some that have been designed specifically for aquaculture. In the freshwater sector only, we will also consider ecosystem services provided by aquaculture that are relevant to integrated catchment planning and management. At 16 case study sites having a variety of scales, aquaculture at different trophic levels with different environmental interactions and most importantly with a range of key space-related development constraints as defined by local stakeholders, we will assess appropriate tools using a common process so as to facilitate synthesis and comparison. This case study approach will generate a large amount of information and is allocated about a third of the project’s resources. The project will develop the outcomes leading to a set of evaluated tools for facilitating the aquaculture planning process by overcoming present constraints. This information will be presented on an interactive web-based platform with tailored entry points for specific user types (e.g. planners, farmers, public) to enable them to navigate to the tools most appropriate to their application. The knowledge and information gained during this process will be developed into an on-line module at Masters Level which will also be developed into a short CPD course aimed at aquaculture planning professionals. The public will be engaged by an innovative school video competition and a vehicle to ensure project legacy will be established.