Production and productivity of Mediterranean marine fish aquaculture, mainly seabass and seabream, are stagnating or growing slowly as a result of multiple and interrelated causes. To accomplish the objective of improving its competitiveness and sustainability, MedAID is structured in a first interdisciplinary WP to assess technical, environmental, market, socioeconomic and governance weaknesses, and in several specialized WPs exploring innovative solutions, followed by an integrating WP, which will provide codes of practice and innovative tool-boxes throughout the value chain to enhance the sector performance holistically. Various stakeholders will interact in the consultation, communication, dissemination and training WPs ensuring practical orientation of the project and results implementation. Biological performance (nutrition, health and genetics) will be scrutinized to identify and quantify the relevant components to improve Key Performance Indicators (KPIs: growth rates, mortality and feed efficiency), thus contributing to increase production efficiency. Economic, business, marketing, environmental, social, administrative and legal factors will be addressed to obtain integrated solutions to shift towards a market-oriented and consumer-responsible business and to face the multiple administrative, environmental and social issues constraining competitiveness and public acceptance. An interdisciplinary consortium of research and industrial partners will carry out R&D and case study activities to close the existing gaps. Mediterranean countries (EU and non-EU) with significant aquaculture production are represented. Northern European R&D institutions will participate by bringing successful technological tools and integrated approaches that Mediterranean aquaculture is missing today. MedAID will impact the sector positively by providing innovative tools, integrated marketing and business plans and by improving the sector image, sustainability and governance.

ActFast aims to identify, validate, and demonstrate climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions tailored for European aquaculture, alongside opportunities to increase sustainable production. Targeting regions where aquaculture is deeply integrated into the socio-economic fabric, the project will map climate hazards across the Mediterranean Sea, Deltas, Central-Eastern European inland waters, and North-East Atlantic Ocean, utilizing historical data, predictions, stakeholder insights, and satellite surveys. Integrating this comprehensive data analysis, the project will develop a user-friendly early warning system for the Mediterranean region empowering aquafarmers to proactively manage and mitigate climate risks. ActFast will promote the development of fast and replicable climate solutions for marine, transitional, and freshwater aquaculture by integrating climate prediction models with targeted solutions in four target regions. Given the unique impacts and sensitivities of the targeted areas and aquaculture systems, ActFast aims to design mitigation strategies that consider both regional and species-specific characteristics, boosting the productive efficiency, health, and well-being of farmed fish and mollusks struggling against climate change's impacts, increasing and diversifying production in coastal and rural areas, promoting economic growth and community resilience, and minimizing environmental impact and shrinking European aquaculture's carbon footprint. The proposed innovations will be shared through an inclusive dissemination and communication plan, while the market uptake of the results and outputs will be ensured by a detailed exploitation strategy. To achieve maximum exploitation, dissemination, and knowledge transfer, ActFast will develop and implement a "Virtual ActFast Lighthouse", an immersive demo-training virtual reality collecting data from diverse experiments and field operations conducted across multiple work packages.