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far, marine biotechnology applications have been in a minority (<1%). A specific public funding opportunity also exists in Horizon 2020 (H2020). This is H2020-SMEINST-1-2014, with a total budget of over EUR 25 million dedicated to SMEs within the Blue Growth activities, including marine biotechnology and aquaculture-related marine technologies and services. The topic within the pillar of Industrial Leadership is “Supporting SMEs efforts for the development - deployment and market replication of innovative solutions for blue growth”. For private investors, growth areas are seen as marine ingredients for food, feed and nutraceuticals; bioremediation; and in-sea activities. Opportunities for SMEs appear to also be affected by local infrastructure. For example, the existence of clusters can help SMEs; strong positive examples include:  PôleMer France, consisting of the Pôle Mer Méditerranée and the Pôle Mer Bretagne, which has actively involved itself and its SME members in marine biotechnology projects;  ScanBalt in northern Europe, which is working within the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea and has established a flagship project SUBMARINER, sustainable uses of Baltic marine resources, with EU region support;  The German industrial biotechnology cluster CLIB 2021 includes several marine-orientated SMEs amongst its members, including Bitop AG, C-LEcta GmbH, DIREVO Industrial Biotechnology GmbH, Evocatal GmbH and Swissaustral Biotech SA. The difficulty of SMEs in maintaining momentum through the value chain when marine biotechnology is being applied to biomedical and industrial applications has been recognised by CIESM (the Mediterranean Science Commission), which advocates as a new and innovative policy initiative the bringing of SMEs together with biotechnology associations, venture capitalists, financing bodies and other stakeholders who can help them “weather the economic storm”, and tackle financial challenges and constraints. 3.1.6 Products and services already in use Marine biotechnology is considered a ‘young’ field of biotechnology and this is demonstrated by the comparative lack of marine biotechnology products on the market. However, Table 3.7 presents examples of some of the products and services currently available. Study in support of Impact Assessment work on Blue Biotechnology 27

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