With the presence of all Consortium Partners representatives, the fourth Executive Board meeting of the project “Improvement and innovation of a BIO-secure Recirculating Aquaculture System for SHRIMP and additional biomass circular production (Acronym: BIORAS_SHRIMP), was held, online, on 29th APRIL 2024. 

The BIORAS_SHRIMP project has received funds under the ERA-NET Cofund on Blue Bioeconomy, Unlocking the Potential of Aquatic Bioresources (BLUEBIO) second additional call 2021, and it is now in its 18th month of activities.

The meeting has been the occasion to highlight the state-of-art of the research activities at National level (in Norway, Malta and Italy) and to discuss the important contribution of our Indian Partner (KUFOS). In particular, the Norwegian Partner AKVA NIVA has presented the results of an experimental trial on shrimp rearing in RAS (recirculation aquaculture system) at different biomass density together with the collection of sludge samples for characterization and future agriculture tests by NIBIO. AquaBioTech Group, with contribution from DFA, has described the Maltese activities mainly focused on designing innovative Recirculation Aquaculture systems and exploring the best conditions to integrate shrimp and plant cultures. Unisalento, on behalf of the other Italian Partners (UNIPI, Biosyntex, Biotecna and Omini), has shown a set of results concerning the design, configuration, realization, and optimization of an effluent treatment system at farm scale, the application of bio-coagulants and bio-flocculants for sludge thickening, the production and characterization of microalgal biomass and the planned activities to check for the presence of valuable bioactive molecules. KUFOS (India) has given an overview of a pilot project, with the involvement of a local Community, dealing with the valorization of experimental facilities for research and innovation on shrimp aquaculture, inviting the Consortium members to evaluate individual contributions for project implementation. The opportunity of student and staff exchange between India and Europe has been also discussed.

The last part of the EB meeting has been devoted to the discussion of many issues related to the management of the project, the LCA procedure, the preliminary actions for training course organization, the activities for dissemination and communication, trying to individuate any critical point and explore for sustainable solutions.