Worldwide, seaweed aquaculture has been developing at an unabated exponential pace over the last six decades. China, Japan, and Korea lead the world in terms of quantities produced. Other Asiatic countries, South America and East Africa have an increasingly significant contribution to the sector. On the other hand, Europe and North America have a long tradition of excellent research in phycology, yet hardly any experience in industrial seaweed cultivation. The Blue Growth economy agenda creates a strong driver to introduce seaweed aquaculture in the UK. GlobalSeaweed: - furthers NERC-funded research via novel collaborations with world-leading scientists; - imports know-how on seaweed cultivation and breeding into the UK; - develops training programs to fill a widening UK knowledge gap; - structures the seaweed sector to streamline the transfer of research results to the seaweed industry and policy makers at a global scale; - creates feedback mechanisms for identifying emergent issues in seaweed cultivation. This ambitious project will work towards three strands of deliverables: Knowledge creation, Knowledge Exchange and Training. Each of these strands will have specific impact on key beneficiary groups, each of which are required to empower the development of a strong UK seaweed cultivation industry. A multi-pronged research, training and financial sustainability roadmap is presented to achieve long-term global impact thanks to NERC's pump-priming contribution. The overarching legacy will be the creation of a well-connected global seaweed network which, through close collaboration with the United Nations University, will underpin the creation of a Seaweed International Project Office (post-completion of the IOF award).

European coastal ecosystems are changing as a result of interactions between a number of drivers including overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Changes in marine ecosystems will impact on human health, food safety and the future sustainability of sectors including aquaculture, fisheries and tourism. Climate projection information is plentiful and there is considerable activity in marine ecosystem impact modelling; however, a disconnect remains between delivery of this information and its effective uptake by end users and policy makers. The CoCliME project will co-develop and co-produce a set of regionally focused climate services to address key impact areas including human health, aquaculture, fisheries and tourism across the regional seas of Europe. The developed services, and associated decision support tools, will empower and support vulnerable coastal sectors to accelerate adaptive decision-making and feed into key governance mechanisms such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Marine Spatial Planning, and local, national and European adaptation planning. The project team brings together a newly established consortium of boundary organisation experts in co-development of climate services with leaders in marine ecosystem research, regional ocean climate modellers, and, at its heart, a number of targeted users and decision makers in each region. The project will offer an innovative and user-focused approach and the development of a societally relevant climate service framework, in addition to the bespoke climate services, that will be transferable to other regions, impact areas, users and marine ecosystem vulnerabilities. Through a regional case study approach, the specific needs of national and European marine ecosystem impact and adaptation planners and regulatory authorities will be identified and addressed through an evidence-based and iterative process designed to feed into climate adaptation strategies across the EU and beyond.