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terms of topics the research projects dealt mainly with biodiversity issues (50%), aquaculture and measures to stimulate in a systematic way the sharing of common 'omic' resources. among these research projects, a strong emphasis was put to integrated projects reflected in the much higher funding volume per project (e.g. a total EC contribution of EUR 10 million for “MARINE GENOMICS“). However, all projects were coordinated by universities; industry involvement was on a very low level. Even though not all countries of Europe were involved, the project partnerships reflect a broad network of the academics in the field. France, UK and Germany were the top three proposal partners, which corresponds to the findings from the stakeholder analysis (see Annex 3). The Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Under FP7 new initiatives are continuing and deepening the development of the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of Life Sciences, mainly within the KBBE programme. In FP7, marine related projects are to be found across all themes of the specific programme COOPERATION71. Theme 2: “Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnologies” plays a key role to support marine related research projects through three activities. In total 21 projects were funded specifically with marine biotechnology scope72 with a total volume of EUR 87 million. The EU contribution was devoted to this topic; mainly in 14 research projects which represented EUR 82 million (see Annex 10 for an inventory of FP7 projects). A change in the expected impact of the projects can be observed with the Commission demanding from projects to shape the European Blue Biotechnology landscape, to involve or even be under industry lead and being of direct use for applications. During FP7 25% of funding went to SMEs. As in FP6, only academic partners were coordinating FP7 projects. Whereas these coordinators originated from eight countries only (Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, UK), in total 24 European countries participated in FP7 marine biotechnology projects, with 18 countries being involved in more than one project. Germany, Italy, UK, France, Belgium and Spain have been most active. With respect to participation, Germany, France and UK were the top 3 proposal partners. The topics of the proposals identified by the mapping exercise largely correspond to the areas of common interest which were (i) marine bioprospecting/biodiscovery (in particular for human health and new industrial compounds); (ii) development of robust, biotechnology-based state of the art R&D tools and infrastructures tailored for marine biotechnology, (iii) molecular aquaculture and (iv) biomass production for bioenergy and fine chemicals. One additional area that also seems to be re-appearing in many countries is the interest in marine environmental biotechnology applications and bio-sensors, among other in the context of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Horizon2020 (H2020) The recently established Horizon2020 programme continues to support Blue Biotechnology issues. This time a broad discussion and shaping on policy and stakeholder level fed into the design of the work programme 2014/2015. The strategic approach to research and innovation funding was implemented into the calls. This approach is aiming to provide the scientific and technological 71 For an overview see: Interim Catalogue of Marine related Projects, EC, 2012, http://ec.europa.eu/research/bioeconomy/pdf/interim_catalogue_of_marine_projects-2012_en.pdf 72 The search was performed according the scoping of this study. However, when searching for ‘marine related projects’, more than 90 projects are found, associated to the KBBE activity 2.1. (Sustainable production and management of biological resources from land, forest and aquatic environments), activity 2.2 (Fork to farm: Food (including seafood), health and wellbeing) and activity 2.3 (Life sciences, biotechnology and biochemistry for sustainable non-food products and processes). The EU spent more than € 1.9 billion for funding this theme and the knowledge bio-based economy over the duration of FP7 (2007-2013). Each of the three activities comprises marine related areas such as sustainable production and management of fisheries and aquaculture, quality and safety in food products (including seafood) as well as marine biotechnologies. While most projects directly deal with fisheries, aquaculture, seafood safety and quality or marine biotechnologies, some of them are only partially relevant to the marine sector (specific work packages, tasks or experiments). It also includes eight large integrating projects (for a total EU contribution of approximately 60M€) partly funded by Theme 2 under the cross-thematic calls “The Ocean of Tomorrow”. 42 Study in support of Impact Assessment work on Blue Biotechnology

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