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barriers perceived to be the most important in Blue Biotechnology are a lack of coordination and collaboration along the value chain, lack of access to finance, lack of knowledge and issues regarding access to resources. More specifically, it appears that Europe is strong in coordinating research activities in the early stages of the value chain but there is a lack of collaboration further along the value chain between those doing the research and initial product development (mainly research institutes and SMEs) and investors, larger companies with the resources to up-scale and commercialise a product and the industry within which the marine biotechnology application will be used. Access to finance is a key issue as well. Whilst there is funding available to Blue Biotechnology related research under the EU’s FP7 and Horizon2020 programmes there is a lack of funding further along the value chain. SMEs involved in product development are reliant on reliable long term funding and the Blue Biotechnology sector is reliant on SMEs de-risking the value chain. Knowledge refers to a number of different issues; knowledge of marine organisms and the ‘uses’ in Blue Biotechnology; lack of knowledge about the Blue Biotechnology sector and its potential among those outside of the field, i.e. the invisibility of the sector – this can affect investment in the sector as there is a lack of understanding of Blue Biotechnology which can act as a deterrent; knowledge of who is doing what within Blue Biotechnology in Europe, what products are SMEs working on and what research projects are taking place – mapping out Blue Biotechnology activities in Europe will help with collaboration and possibly investment. Access to resources also contains a number of specific aspects: regulatory issues such as Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) are unclear and create uncertainty; there is legal uncertainty regarding the source and traceability of marine resources used in Blue Biotechnology products; physical access to marine resources for the purposes of bioprospecting and collection can be difficult and costly. The EU recognises the importance of Blue Biotechnology as is demonstrated by the funding of marine biosciences, and marine biotechnology in particular, under the EU Research Framework programmes and specifically through Horizon2020 – which recognises Blue Growth as a focus theme. A range of initiatives, networks and clusters relating to marine biotechnology have been established at the national, regional and European level whose objectives have been to coordinate research and development activities, innovation and infrastructure. The recently launched Marine Biotechnology ERA-NET is one such initiative which will promote and coordinate collaboration between national and regional research funding organisations and programme administrators with the goal of establishing a long-term European Research Agenda and facilitating information exchange. There is no overarching Blue Biotechnology policy in Europe and the approach of Member States towards national policies is disparate. Europe appears to be very active within the R&D stage of the Blue Biotechnology value chain. Europe generates almost a third of the scientific publications in this field. However, comparing this scientific activity to the trend in patents publications, a striking difference emerges that suggests that there is less success in developing products from promising discoveries. For example, while strong in publishing new research, Europe only represents 13% of patents filed in relation to new marine molecules. In contrast, Japan and China seem far more active in patent publications than in scientific publications. The distinctiveness of Blue Biotechnology is shown to be largely defined by the medium itself. The main characteristics which emerge include: 54 Study in support of Impact Assessment work on Blue Biotechnology

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