Annual Meeting – Smartfish
The Smartfish project, funded by Horizon2020, is having its annual meeting now. It was originally supposed to be in Lorient, France this year – which for Covid-19 reasons was cancelled. It is now on TEAMS, like most of our interactions have been on for the past year. Close to 40 participants attended the first day of presentations. The meeting lasts for two full days (February 16th- 17th 2021). Presentations are made from the results of the last year from the different work packages on fisheries technology, and Covid-19 challenges are identified. Mostly, these result from the inability of testing our technologies at sea because cruises have been cancelled.
Interview with “All About Money”
I was recently interviewed by the Hong Kong International Business Channel about whether commercial fishing can be made more efficient and sustainable – within the framework of the Smartfish project. Smartfish is an international research initiative that’s developing high-tech systems for the fishing industry, including methods for scanning catch in real-time. I was interviewed in two roundsv – about 12 minutes each – by journalist Dhruv Tikekar. This is the link to Part 2 of the interview: https://fb.watch/3oNEsNjVtj/
Interview with CNN
My colleage John Reidar Mathiassen and I were interviewed by CNN internationals series Business Evolved recently about a Horizon2020 project SINTEF Ocean coordinates – Smartfish – this is the finished product! We were interviewed the entire day – and it all ended up with this 3 minute video that was aired on CNN – along with a story about the project. Click on the picture below to go directly to the CNN page where the video and the interview is located. You can also find it here: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/19/business/smart-tech-fishing-spc-intl/index.html
Aberdeen – 2nd annual meeting for Smartfish
Smartfish is another Horizon 2020 project I am involved in – this one I am Project Leader for and work closely with the SINTEF Ocean team on coordinating the project – and this trip was the second annual meeting – we are halfway through the project, and it was time for us to discuss how to continue with the testing part of the project. SMARTFISH H2020 is an international research project which aims to develop, test and promote a suite of high-tech systems for the EU fishing sector. The goal is to optimize resource efficiency, improve automatic data collection for fish stock assessment, provide evidence of compliance with fishery regulations…
Brussels and the 18 month review
One of the research projects I have a work package leader role in is called COASTAL – and it is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. In this project, we take advantage of a unique multi-actor collaboration of coastal and rural business entrepreneurs, administrations, stakeholders, and natural and social science experts in our networks, and we developed a proposal where one of the aims was to formulate and evaluate business solutions and policy recommendations that had as its aim to improve coastal-rural synergies that could in turn foster rural and coastal development while still preserving the environment. My role in this project is to lead…
Bergen – January 2020
As soon as the New Year was over and regular work started, I flew straight over to Bergen to see my good colleague Dorothy and her colleague Jeppe – we are writing a proposal to Horizon2020 on fisheries and I needed input and help from Dorothy – we have worked together for many years and on many projects and proposals and she is excellent at what she does! I was only there for a day and a night – but despite what is said about how most things dont need trips – well – some things do – and working on proposals together is one of those things that in…
Annual Meeting – GoJelly! in Piran, Slovenia
What an amazing week in Slovenia! I sometimes pinch myself at how lucky I am to get to work on such exciting projects with a fantastic group of people from not only all over Europe – but also from within my own organization and my town! I had never been to Slovenia before – and did not know much about the country – but it has a very small coast line but a big personality! It is on the Adriatic sea, north of Croatia, south of Austria, and across the pond from Italy – and it was so quaint and sweet a place. We got there the day before, and…
South Africa, jellyfish and infiltrating a natural science conference
The GoJelly! project has taken me to South Africa now – Cape Town specifically! I was one of the convenors of the session on the Human-Jellyfish Nexus where the aim of the session was to place jellyfish within a larger system – namely the socio-ecological system – and bring attention to its effect – and possibility as use as a resource. I had the honor of kicking off the session with discussing GoJelly results from WP7 (Socio-Ecological System and Games), specifically the results from the questionnaire that was sent out throughout Europe in autumn of 2018. This questionnaire, which was distributed in 8 different languages and sent out via Facebook…
A Quick Trip to Brussels – 18 months of GoJelly to report on!
It is incredible that the crazy fun project GoJelly – a gelatinous solution to plastic pollution – is already done with its first 18 months – and that we are reporting on it too! The report went very well – and I am proud to be part of this team that is looking at how to exploit jellyfish blooms to develop new products – like cosmetics and food – as well as the innovations we are spearheading in also using the mucus from the jellyfish to develop a filter that can capture microplastics from waste water treatment plants. My job in this project is to lead the work on “Socioecological…
As the third round of BBNJ negotiations start in NYC…
The second article that Elizabeth Mendenhall, Elizabeth Nyman and Elizabeth De Santo and I have written about the BBNJ negotiations in Marine Policy is published – and my fourth article about the negotiations in total so far (two more are under review – and we have at least three more on the writing block). This article that we published today – as the third substantive session of negotiations started yesterday in NYC – is a review and our perspectives on the second round of negotiations that took place in March and April of this year – published in Marine Policy. Abstract to “A soft treaty, hard to reach: The second…
