Together with maritime clusters and partners around the North Sea, the South Norway European Office has been awarded EU funds to identify and develop new business opportunities in emerging blue markets.
The Periscope project (Platform for Expanding Regional Innovation SCOPE) for blue growth will be headed by organizations in Southern Norway, which ensures the region a central position in the North Sea co-operation.
The ocean is a driving force for the Norwegian and European economies and has great potential for innovation and growth. According to the European Commission, 5.4 million European jobs could be created in renewable offshore energy, cruise and coastal tourism, blue biotechnology, aquaculture and subsea mining. The Agder region holds the offshore and marine technology necessary to extract the potential of these blue sectors.
NEW MARKET OPPORTUNITIES FOR NODE COMPANIES
Marit Dolmen, RD&I Manager at GCE NODE, was pleased to see the project application be approved by Interreg North Sea. She looks forward to the project being launched on October 1, 2017.
“Periscope is an exciting innovation project that allows NODE companies to further develop their own technologies and competencies and transfer them to new industries. The project aims to bring together businesses and research and innovation institutions in an ecosystem that will share insights across sectors, develop ideas and initiate new ventures in emerging markets, especially in renewable marine energy, subsea mining, marine biotechnology, marine technologies and specialized vessels and infrastructures. This strategic project enables us to identify new market opportunities for NODE companies, which is important given the current market situation. Furthermore, it provides us new international networks with which we can further develop ideas – both on the technology side and on the market side.
DRAWING ATTENTION IN BRUSSELS
Stig Marthinsen, Managing Director of South Norway European Office, believes Periscope can help promote Southern Norway’s marine and maritime position in a Norwegian and European context.
“In the development phase, we have been met with great interest from the European Commission and the North Sea Commission, which looks at Periscope as a strategically important tool for addressing the blue growth potential,” says Marthinsen.
Cluster-to-cluster collaboration, involving hundreds of companies and research and innovation environments, makes the venture unique and will certainly open up both corporate collaboration and new international initiatives in which GCE NODE and the Agder region will play an important role.
ABOUT PERISCOPE
Periscope fosters long-term cooperation in the North Sea Region bringing forward innovative products, services & processes for sustainable development of emerging maritime and marine activities. It strengthens the fragmented maritime and marine clusters, and develops transnational, cross-sector partnerships between players in the ecosystem. Other long-term impacts include increasing the visibility and understanding of Blue Growth opportunities and attracting finance, skills and entrepreneurship to the sector, while respecting environmental protection & sustainability.
To discover, understand and open up emerging market opportunities with sustainable innovations, the clusters in the ecosystem must lead jointly the open entrepreneurial discovery process to reinforce the knowledge base, identify and valorize innovation opportunities and ideas, and to stimulate business driven innovation actions on the concrete opportunities.
Goals (extract):
- Reach out to, and engage actively, 300+ businesses, knowledge institutions, incubators, finance bodies and public sector in Blue Growth innovation ecosystem, sharing knowledge and pursuing opportunities in partnerships for growth.
- Develop state-of-the-art opportunity discovery process and online foresight tool within blue economy to improve innovation potential;
- Discovery of emerging Blue Growth opportunities with a projected market size/cost saving potential of EUR 50 million per year.
- Trigger 10 transnational SME collaborations to pursue identified Blue Growth innovation opportunities.
- Accelerate 2+ major transnational Blue Growth development projects in the North Sea region.
PARTNERS:
- South-Norway European Office, Norway
- GCE NODE, Norway
- Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
- Nederland Maritiem Land, Netherlands
- Samenwerkingsverband Nord-Nederland, Netherlands
- Hanze University, Netherlands
- Busines Region Göteborg, Sweden
- SP (RISE), Sweden
- European Marine Energy Centre, UK
- 4Strat, Germany
- Center of Maritime Technologies, Germany
- Offshore Energy Denmark, Denmark
