Building on the success of the first round of projects supported under this scheme, up to ten financial awards will be provided to facilitate the development of concepts and ideas that could result in novel technologies and enable industry to develop sustainably. The award scheme is aimed principally at members of the industry but applications are also welcome from the academic community provided they can demonstrate direct industry participation and benefit.
The maximum value of any single grant will be 3,000 with successful applicants providing match funding of 3,000 (in cash or in kind). The deadline for applications is Monday 12 September 2005. Details and application forms can be downloaded from www.seafish.org.
Through its membership of the Scottish Aquaculture Research Forum (SARF), Seafish is also giving its financial backing to a number of project areas announced in SARFs most recent call for proposals details of which can be found on the SARF website http://www.sarf.org.uk
These include the development of practical and meaningful welfare indices for farmed cod, improving our understanding of cod broodstock nutrition and looking at the performance of some non-standard shellfish depuration facilities to investigate ways of optimising their efficiency. The deadline for the submission of applications is Monday 22 August 2005.
By making a significant contribution to SARFs core funding, Seafish together with other SARF members, is providing an important generic source of funding for aquaculture research.
SARF was established as a company and registered charity in April 2004. The projected funding commitment to projects commissioned by the end of 2005 will be 1.23m, of which SARF is contributing 766,000 (63 per cent of total costs).
As confidence in the capacity of SARF to deliver meaningful research for its stakeholders has increased, so too has the level of core funding and offers of collaborative support for projects from other main sponsors of research including Defra and Food Standards Agency Scotland.
Research & Development funding in the UK is becoming difficult to secure and is often only available in relatively small amounts within diverse organisations. SARF is playing an increasingly important role in helping co-ordinate and sponsor high priority research in this sector by encouraging sponsors to collaborate and pool resources to provide the sums necessary to fund high calibre peer reviewed research.
Source: Seafish - 16th August 2005