Aquaculture is forecasted to grow in the years to come (FAO 2014) and be a central part of the ever increasing need for food. A more effecient way of farming in the aquaculture industry is essential if we are to achieve the goals set by the European Union (EU) for water based food production. Aquaculture students and teachers therefore need updated knowledge about RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture Systems), so this can become a more integrated part at both Vocational Education and Training (VET) and higher education levels in the schools/universities.There is a need to further develop partnerships between education and industry to ensure that the students are updated about the possibilities for and challenges related to industrial growth based on a sustainable use of available water resources. This will, among other things, mean to create arenas for the exchange of knowledge and a renewal of some of the teaching methods. RAS is foreseen to be a central part of the aquaculture industry in the coming years. There is therefore a demand for a competence building in the educational institutes across Europe on RAS technology. This project will focus on RAS as a technology for the aquaculture industry, for present aquaculture species as well as possible new species. The partner countries have different traditions of how to use RAS, and we believe we have something to learn from each other. The introduction of ‘new’ species for farming and how this is managed is an exciting subject, as this varies in the regions represented in the project.The target groups for the project will be:1) teachers and instructors that perform teaching and training in subjects covered by the project;2) staff in businesses working with RAS;3) students in partner schools (indirectly as they will benefit from the project results and not directly be involved in the project activities).The Partnership is composed of universities, aquaculture organisations, upper secondary schools and businesses. The businesses will play a key role in making the content of the project more relevant and concrete. The Partnership is based on the idea of an increased cooperation between education and the aquaculture business world. At the same time we want to create links between VET and higher education institutes. The aim is to increase the awareness of, and knowledge about, aquaculture as a basis for a sustainable way of food production among students and teachers/instructors as a red thread through life-long learning. The upper secondary schools offers aquaculture as subjects for their students, and the university partners are involved with several aquaculture research projects, and at the same time they educate students at higher education level. The industry partners are experts in the field of RAS and have broad national and international networks. Some partners offer courses for students as well as the public, and innovate and develop digital tools and methods for personal follow-up and development.The project activities will focus on different subjects. The objective of LTT-activties is to increase knowledge about RAS, and how this knowledge can be transferred to students. By connecting industrial partners to education institutes we will make sure this is in accordance with the industry demands. The Intellectual Outputs in the project are the development of different kinds of teaching material and a E-learning platform aimed at different educational levels. This is directly linked to the aim of an increased knowledge among young people about RAS as an effective and sustainable way of aquaculture. The Multiplier Events connected to the Intellectual Outputs are open to stakeholders, and the aim is to increase the knowledge about the different aspects of RAS in accordance with national aims for increased aquaculture production and consumption of seafood.The most important result and impact of the project will be an increased knowledge among teachers and instructors about RAS. The development of updated teaching material will be very welcome among both schools and businesses, as this will benefit the further development of the RAS farming. The established partnership and the planned activities and deliverables will create a good foundation for future cooperation between education institutes and the aquaculture industry.At a local/regional level the desired impact will be increased knowledge among the participants about the opportunities in their own region when it comes to RAS. This will benefit municipalities in their management of their areas and resources, especially since young people will obtain this knowledge and experience through education institute. The project will hopefully be a positive marketing feature for the aquaculture industry as a central part of a forward-looking and sustainable part of the bioeconomy.

Expansion of low trophic aquaculture (LTA) for increasing seafood production are faced with opportunities in unexploited regions and environments and maximizing benefits of marine space by considering low impact multi-use (MU) of space such as combining wind farm areas and integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA). The main objective of OLAMUR (Offshore Low-trophic Aquaculture in Multi-Use scenario Realisation) is to bring together multi-use low-trophic aquaculture (MU-LTA) related key sectors, to demonstrate sustainable commercial solutions for both the North and the Baltic Sea. OLAMUR will establish three pilot demonstration sites where seaweed and blue mussels will be grown within windfarms or in the vicinity of a trout farm. The wind farm pilot sites are located in the German exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the North Sea north of Helgoland, in the Danish EEZ of the Baltic Sea at Kriegers Flak and the third pilot demonstration site will be next to a trout farm in the Estonian Sea near the Port of Veere. All data, information, products and standards for establishing, operating and evaluating will be monitored, simulated, stored and customized as an “OLAMUR digital MU-LTA farm service”. This will provide a solid basis for MU-LTA upscaling. Through a transdisciplinary holistic approach, OLAMUR will ensure severe contributions towards demonstrating and documenting the possibilities for low impact co-use of the marine space. A data-based service system will be developed for policymakers for knowledge-based decisions, and innovative governance/policy arrangements will be developed towards achieving a holistic, effective and sustainable solution for multiple uses. OLAMUR will focus on 3 pilots that will serve as testing and demonstration sites. An important pathway towards impact in OLAMUR is the science-policy-industry-community interface. With that OLAMUR ensures advancement in developing optimal and carbon-neutral use and enabling a quantum leap towards long term sustainable, healthy and rich European marine spaces.

Aquaculture is estimated to be one of the fastest growing industries in the world and will be even more central in food production in the future. In the future industrial development of Europe, we see an increased focus on a sustainable use of our natural resources. When this is coupled with an ever-increasing need for food production worldwide and a corresponding increase in the amount of high-quality seafood being demanded and consumed, there is a need for improved knowledge to utilise the available marine resources in a sustainable way. Low-trophic and sustainable aquaculture is essential if we are to achieve the goals set by the European Union (EU) and/or each country for food production in (or from) the sea. More and more of this production must come from species that can utilise energy sources such as sunlight and plankton for growth and that do not need additional feed made from species that also can be used directly as human food. There is a common national goal to eat more seafood. Macroalgae as food is quite new or unknown to people in Western Europe, and this project aims to give basic skills on this subject to the students and teachers involved. In addition, it is a project goal to tell and teach the public about macroalgae. Farming of macroalgae is a stated focus area in the partnership countries Norway, Denmark and Ireland, and the ambitions is quite high. A report from SINTEF Ocean (October 2017) estimate the production potential for macroalgae to be 90 000 tons for Trøndelag county (Norway) alone.The 11 partners in this intersectoral two year partnership project have different approaches to macroalgae; teaching and training, natural science, research and development, seedling and farming of macroalgae, processing and distribution of products. This open up for a broad view on new knowledge, and how this can be utilized among the partners and also spread to other stakeholdres. The different approaches is a strenght when it comes to further development of the macroalgae industry, as there is a need for different competences at different levels.Macroalgae is an international industry, with a total production of 30 million tons a year. Asia is the main producer and consumer, and macroalgae is not so common in Europe yet. There is therefore demand for a common understanding across Europe of how macroalgae can be farmed, used in different ways and its environmental impact. To transfer knowledge among students – as future employees, stakeholders and decision makers – across borders is an excellent start for such an understanding. Students (as future employees) and teachers (as knowledge providers) need updated knowledge and competence about low-trophic aquaculture in general and macroalgae in spesific, to make it a more integrated part in the education programmes. At the Transnational project meetings and LTT activities a total of 150 students and teachers/staff will participate. The LTT activities will have focus on different aspects, such as macroalgae as food, the environmental impacts of macroalgae and macroalgae farming. In addition we aim to have at least 125 participants at four different Multiplier events, organized as open seminars with different topics related to macroalgae. At these seminars stakeholders and policy makers will be invited, along with media and the general public. The seminars will be connected to the presentation and launching of the four Intellectual outputs (IO) in the project. The IO will be in different formats, such as a publication on macroalgae and environment, teaching and training material as hands-on (paper), vodcasts and e-learning book, and macroalgae fact sheets in a populist format easy to read and use for educational purposes as well as information for the general public.The impact of this project will be an increased knowledge about macroalgae as low-trophic and sustainable aquaculture, algae as a sustainable and healthy food resource and the importance in an environmental perspective. The partners / participating organisations will increase their international network and obtain new knowledge which lead to ideas and strategies for the implementation of new teaching and training methods, as well as establishment of collaborative constellations and new partnership/projects. Through dissemination activities and Multiplier Events the project will reach the relevant audience for the Intellectual Outputs from the project and meet stakeholders that have, or develop, an interest in the topics covered by the project. Information about the project in general will be available on the partners’ websites and the project Facebook page, including the Intellectual Outputs produced. The project results will be made available on request. In addition to the project partners, schools in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland will get access to the project results and be able to use them for free in their organisations.

The Ocean Connections project took place against a background of increasing urgency with respect to issues of climate change and completes as the COP 26 Climate Change Conference is due to take place. Young people are increasingly aware of, and concerned about climate change and other issues of environmental sustainability, yet developing their understanding of the fragile balance of the Earth’s systems remains an ongoing challenge. The project drew on expertise from a range of partners in the UK, Denmark and Spain. HEI institutions led the project activity in each country, with overall coordination by the University of Exeter, UK, who also brought expertise in creativity and environmental educational research. VIA College, Denmark brought expertise in educational research into AR and VR. CESGA’s expertise was in the design and development of digital learning tools for education. In each country, the expertise of teachers and aquarium educators in partner schools and aquaria ensured that materials developed in partnership and tested in schools were appropriate and useable by teachers and informal educators. The objectives of the project were to:•Understand the position of Ocean Literacy, creativity pedagogies and digital technology in the formal and informal curriculum in the partner countries;•Summarise the international research literacy with respect to teaching for Ocean Literacy, creative pedagogies and education using AR/VR digital technologies;•Synthesise this state of the art knowledge to develop a set of educative principles to guide teaching for Ocean Literacy using creative, digital pedagogies•Design projects for pupils to learn about Ocean Literacy, drawing on these educative principles•Evaluate these projects to understand their impact on pupils’ knowledge and attitudes and the way in which the educative principles were enacted•Draw on the educative principles and the project outcomes to develop a toolkit for teachers to use creative and digital pedagogies together to enable young people’s Ocean learning .Materials developed were piloted in schools: three pilot projects with pupils aged 9-11, and three with pupils aged 11-14. Overall, 4 aquarium educators (1 UK, 1 Denmark, 2 Spain), 10 teachers (4UK, 3 Denmark, and 3 Spain), and 235 pupils participated directly in the pilot projects (135 pupils aged 9-11; of whom 120 were from the UK and 15 from Denmark, and 117 age 11-14, of whom 101 were from Spain and 16 from Denmark).A State of the Art Review was produced, including an analysis of curricula for pupils aged 7-11 and 11-14 in each partner country related to Ocean Literacy to search for points of commonality and difference in national approaches, an exploration of where and how creative pedagogies and AR/VR digital technologies were used in practice in the partner countries, and an international literature review of research into the three project ‘strands. A unique VR tool was created for use by teachers and pupils. Using 360 images and video from aquaria and the Ocean, using this tool pupils are able to interact with, communicate, and create learning materials for themselves with respect to the Ocean. The Ocean Connections Educative Principles and the new VR tool were used by project partners in each country to design and implement six ‘pilot projects’, three for pupils aged 7-11 (Ocean Adaptations, Plastic Pollution, and Nursing Grounds for Fish) and three for pupils aged 11-14 (Biodiversity, Shoal of Fish and Accessing the Ocean). Each project was evaluated using a mixed methods, case study approach, to produce a case study report on each pilot and an overall synthesis of the findings with respect to key research questions regarding the impact on pupils’ knowledge of and attitudes towards the ocean, pupils’ and educators’ perspectives about the innovative creative and digital approaches, and the way in which the educative principles manifested in the pilot projects. Alongside these, an innovative ‘diffractive analysis’ of the data was undertaken, drawing on arts-based methods and new materialist theory to develop new insights and questions into the nature of learning in these projects. Findings show that many pupils found the use of VR with creative pedagogies engaging and impactful, but that there were some barriers in using the tool due to lack of sufficient bandwidth and, in some schools, lack of experience. Care, responsibility and activism emerged as important themes, with some key areas of connection between creative and digital pedagogies that could be usefully built upon in the design of learning experiences. The educative principles, VR tool, and pilot projects were used to create a toolkit for teachers which can be found on the Ocean Connections website. The project was disseminated via seven stakeholder and dissemination events, newspaper articles, social media, and conference presentations.