A geographer has been awarded €300,000 in funding to lead the Irish stage of a European project aiming to boost the transformation towards a “climate neutral” blue economy.
Dr John Morrissey, lecturer in geography at Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, will lead the Irish research element of Aquabalance, a project under the EU’s “Blue Economy Partnership” programme.
The research, which has received €1.3 million between partner researchers in Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Italy, will run for three years.
The project funding comes at a time when the EU is trying to encourage discourse around “blue economies—coastal and marine communities—as new economic space”, Dr Morrisey explains:
“Our economic priorities in Ireland often don’t reflect that we are an island nation. There’s huge potential in the likes of off-shore wind and the rejuvenation of coastal communities and this project will look at new ways of thinking about and designing models for aquaculture in regional contexts,” he says.
“For example, how can a community have salmon farms that benefit the local area, do not harm the environment and fundamentally benefit everyone?,” he says.
“In particular, Aquabalance will focus on the sustainable development challenges of aquaculture in Europe, contributing to the goals of the EU “Farm to Fork” strategy and tackling the grand challenges of climate change and social justice,” he says.
“This project takes a multi-national and transdisciplinary approach to understanding emerging blue economies, focusing in particular on dilemmas associated with rebalancing the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability,” he says.
Prof Natalia Maehle, Aquabalance project coordinator, says this is “a cutting-edge project that will provide the aquaculture industry and stakeholders with a wide range of new knowledge and evidence-based recommendations to ensure its social legitimacy and sustainability”.
A three-year funded PhD, and a postdoctoral research contract for two years, is also included in the funding.