EMFAF – Regional flagships projects supporting sustainable blue economy in EU sea basins – Smart Specialisation and Regenerative Ocean Farming and Algae Innovation – 2025

Objectives

• To animate and underpin the S3 Thematic Platform for Sustainable Blue Economy with strategic interregional partnerships that develop and implement highly innovative solutions addressing priorities in the EU sustainable blue economy (i.e. decarbonisation of the blue economy sectors, energy transition, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, ect..)
• To support the development of regenerative ocean farming by proving its feasibility and viability and generating knowledge on the environmental benefits including by testing these approaches, as far as possible, in connection with Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

Priorities

• Priority 1: To boost existing interregional partnerships that work on the identification of innovative blue economy solutions and investment with business potential
• Priority 2: To promote the creation of interregional partnerships by building on existing smart specialisation strategies and shared blue economy priorities of European regions
• Priority 3: To address thematic priorities (within the five blue economy sectors mentioned under section 1 and listed below under ‘Activities that can be funded’), supporting a sea basin or cross-sea basin approach, including the sea basinscale cooperation of the Mission Ocean lighthouses
• Priority 4: To set up and operate ocean farms across various EU marine regions and measure and quantify environmental benefits of regenerative farming of either local seaweed species or seaweed in combination with shellfish
• Priority 5: To test and to demonstrate of innovative algae-based products and services to bring them closer to market

Among financed actions

• Prototypes, portfolios of projects for close-to-market investments
• Workshops, matchmaking or networking events
• Mentoring, coaching, training, investment readiness support, financial planning support
• Baseline environmental data, measurement, analysis
• Development, testing, demonstration, networking

Eligibility

• Be a legal person
• Be a public or private entity
• Be established in one of the eligible countries:
  • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories)
  • Non-EU states that are part of the EU sea basin strategies targeted in this call for proposals: Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey; Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya
• A consortium composed :
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-I3:
    • At least 4 entities, established in at least 4 different EU Member States or associated countries to the programme must be constituted
    • At least 1 regional administration, minimum 2 private sector entities active in commercial blue economy sectors and minimum one partner from research/academia
    • The coordinator must be established in an EU Member State
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-OCEANFARMING:
    • At least 2 entities, established in at least 2 different EU Member States or associated countries to the programme must be constituted
    • At least 1 private sector participant active in ocean farming and/or algae sectors
    • The coordinator must be established in an EU Member State

Additional information

• Initial duration of the action: between 24 and 36 months
• Contact: cinea-emfaf-calls@ec.europa.eu

Useful

• Guidelines: Click here
• Other call documents: Click here
• Executive Agency website: Click here
• More information: Click here

• Total budget of the call: 5.7 million euro
• Total budget of the topic:
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-I3: 3.8 million euro
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-OCEANFARMING: 1.9 million euro
• Amount of the grant:
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-I3: between 1.5 million euro and 2.5 million euro
  • EMFAF-2025-PIA-FLAGSHIP-OCEANFARMING: between 700.000 and 1 million euro
• Funding rate: up to 70% of the total eligible costs