EMBRIC and Treasures from the Deep were very grateful for the sponsorship and participation by Xanthella at the recent European Parliament facing workshop, symposium and roundtable –“Mining for Valuable Bioactive and Enzymes from Marine Algae and Bacteria” – held in Brussels on the 5th March 2019.
European Marine Biological Research Infrastructure Cluster (EMBRIC) held a breakfast meeting at the European Parliament, hosted by Clare Moody, MEP for UK South West and Gibraltar. Xanthella attended the parliamentary breakfast with around 20 scientists, including early career scientists, to discuss the needs and opportunities of the marine environment. The debate continued at the workshop – Treasures from the Deep – held at Scotland House, Brussels, attended by around 50 scientists and company representatives. During the scientific discussion, participants presented their current successful advances, in both oral and poster presentations, showcasing the opportunities of the marine ecosystem and highlighting the vast potential for this research, including its social and economic benefits.
A full day of lively debate ended in a round table led by Dr Marcel Jaspars and Dr Melody Clark, and joined by Ms Clare Moody and Baroness Mobarik, bringing together representatives of academia, industry and parliament to discuss the needs of the field. Among the points touched, was that academia and industry are willing to share their expertise and match their time frame to work together at a European scale, but to do so more effectively requires stronger support from European Parliament. Discussions highlighted the need for the EU to support SMEs and small-scale projects to facilitate products getting to market. Indeed, SMEs have different needs and challenges than research institutions and these have to be considered in the European funding strategy. It was stressed that the potential of marine resources and its sustainable exploitation are still relatively untapped due to regulatory limitations. Uncertainty of further funding and support at the end of large-scale projects investing in the discovery of new compounds from the marine environment has been recognized as another big limitation. The support of infrastructures such as EMBRC might partially address the need to sustain activities and interactions beyond the end of the lifetime of large projects; protecting public investments in research by enabling the generated resources to be maintained for future use and exploitation thus contributing to the blue economy.
The event was organized by Rebecca Goss (USTAN), David Smith (CABI) and Mariella Ferrante (SZN), as part of the European Marine Biological Research Infrastructure Cluster (EMBRIC).
Follow link for further information – http://www.embrc.eu/newsroom/embric-press-release-treasures-deep
Details of the full programme and poster abstracts on Treasures from the Deep Workshop