Investing in seaweed innovation across Europe

Comprising 16 partner entities from 6 EU countries, the I3-4-SEAWEED project champions interregional collaboration aimed at scaling, demonstrating, and ensuring market readiness of business ventures within the macroalgae/seaweed sector.

Combining the strengths of innovative SMEs, universities, tech hubs, and industry clusters, the project envisions a transformative, transnational value chain rooted in new sustainable seaweed cultivation techniques and algal biotechnological applications. As an untapped reservoir of potential, seaweed not only embodies the promise of sustainable innovation but also holds the power to reshape regional development, in particular in coastal areas and maritime regions of the EU. Through the project’s investment cases – spanning the food industry, biofertilizers, and cosmetics – seaweed demonstrates its vast versatility and potential to revolutionize multiple sectors, marking a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable future, from healthier diets to lower CO2 emissions.

To deliver on these investment cases, I3-4-SEAWEED will provide capacity-building, demonstrations, technical support, business matchmaking and support to the development of go-to-market market strategies tailored to the needs of each business case promoter. In parallel, the consortium will design and launch a cascade funding programme to support 30 innovative SMEs and startups, confronting market and technical barriers, while ensuring the boosting of the ecosystem across Europe.

Seaweed and other algae are a remarkable nutritional source of food for humans, feed for aquaculture and land animals, and fertilizers for crops. Algae alone could increase the world's food supply by 10 per cent, using just 0.03 per cent more of the ocean's surface. As pointed out by the European Commission, they also provide “a versatile, nature-based solution for climate change mitigation and adaptation” and for “counteracting eutrophication and biodiversity crisis”.

The European market for seaweed in 2030 can worth up to €2.7 billion, of which one third could be captured by European producers, creating outstanding livelihood opportunities for coastal communities. Given the persistent geopolitical and geoeconomics context – characterized by a 2-year long food price inflation and expected food shortages – the seaweed and algae sector’s untapped potential, namely to the sustainability of the EU food system, is ever more noticeable.

This project brings together a diverse range of public and private players to develop a portfolio of interregional investments for the piloting, demonstration and scale-up of innovative seaweed/algae-based solutions in different sectors. This initiative aims to identify and overcome barriers that are hindering the sector’s sustainable growth along the value chain. The project will build an extensive interregional partnership able to tackle high production costs, while developing disruptive new applications and innovations towards the mainstreaming of the production and consumption of algae across Europe as food and sustainable feed source, including biofertilizers and cosmetics applications.

BUDGET: €8 999 003.88

Lead organisation

F6S EU TECH INNOVATION NETWORK - Ireland

W: i3-4-seaweed.eu (under construction)
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/i3-4-seaweed

I3-4-SEAWEED

Lead organisation

Cases