There is a large and constantly growing consumer demand for fish in the EU and worldwide, yet natural waters are on the edge of overfishing and capture fisheries cannot satisfy market need. Aquaculture production is the only way to go, but EU is characterised by a fragmented approach and is thus not able to compete well with global competitors, covering more than half of its consumption from imports. SilGen offers a complete system of highly efficient aquaculture for mass production of premium quality fish that is guaranteed free of contaminants. The technology is highly sustainable, can be operated under any geographical and climatic conditions, and offers 200% productivity vs traditional methods. SilGen builds on the novel opportunity offered by the comprehensive package of a newly domesticated predatory species of the native European catfish, scientifically formulated feed, and an elaborate production technology that has been perfected over a decade, now ready for deployment. However, marketing a complex novel package is a bold, disruptive step, translating to risk for initial adopters. Therefore 3 demonstrator farms will be piloted, establishing technology reference, market replication, and commercial bridgehead position. The real-life piloting will feature tech standardisation, operational protocols for different environmental conditions, business management, advanced feed formulation and species optimisation, as well as marketing and commercial preparatory actions. SilGen will be commercialised under a franchise brand, ensuring investment-light fast growth and strong scalability, to be executed by a joint venture of consortium members in ‘SilGen International’. Beyond the economic gains and global perspective, the transformative technology has the power to resolve structural limits of the European fish supply sector and drive consumer habits towards high quality, healthy, local produce, alleviating EU reliance on imports and environmental footprint.

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.