ERA-MBT funds six projects in the first joint call | Marinebiotech

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ERA-MBT funds six projects in the first joint call

Published on 24 November 2015

In the first joint call entitled "The development of biorefinery processes for marine biomaterials", the Marine Biotechnology ERA-NET (ERA-MBT) has selected six projects to be funded with a total budget of more than € 8 million. After the submission date of 10 December 2014, 37 pre-proposals were received requesting a total funding of € 42 million. There were 23 proposals requesting € 27.5 million selected to continue to the next stage. From these full-proposals 6 were selected to be funded. 

The call is an initiative of 14 funding organisations from 11 countries. Partnering between at least 3 different countries resulted in 37 consortia and 194 participants, of which some are also from outside the call partnership. The priority in many projects are algae, but also fish and bacteria are important biomass sources targeted for the development of sustainable biorefinery processes.

The aim of the first Joint Call is to bring together basic, applied, technology and market driven research approaches to enhance and develop efficient and sustainable biotechnology based biorefinery processes for marine bioresources. Transnational research consortia from academia, research institutes and industry were invited to submit proposals that develop new and/or improved biotechnological knowledge, tools and methods for the sustainable processing of marine biomass into a variety of bio-based products and/or services. This is best achieved through integrated biorefinery processes ideally utilising all molecular fractions present in the relevant biomass.

Projects are expected to start at the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016.

 

More information on the projects can be read in the factsheets and in the table below:

Mar3Bio - Biorefinery and biotechnological exploitation of  marine biomasses

MARBioFEED - Enhanced biorefining methods for the production of marine biotoxins and microalgae fish feed

MicroMBT - Discovery and training of microbial biocatalysts for  biomass conversion using moving bed technology (MBT)

NEPTUNA - Novel Extraction Processes for mulTiple high-value compoUNds from selected Algal source materials

SeaRefinery  - The Seaweed Biorefinery – for high value added products

ThermoFactories - Thermophilic cell factories for efficient conversion of brown algae biomass to high-value chemicals

Proposal            Acronym

Duration   (month)

Coordinating  Country

Requested      funding (€)

Funded                                                            by

NEPTUNA

24

IE

759,976

BE-FWO, IE-MI, NO-RCN

SeaRefinery

36

DK

1,406,156

BE-IWT, DK-IFD, IS-RANNIS, IE-MI, NO-IN

MARBioFEED

36

IE

615,000

NO-RCN, ES-MINECO, IE-MI

ThermoFactories

36

NO

1,946,559

DK-IFD, IS-RANNIS, NO-RCN, PT-FCT, SE-FORMAS  

MicroMBT

36

NO

1,503,285

NO-RCN, PT_FCT, SE-FORMAS

Mar3Bio

36

NO

2,180,424

NO-RCN, NO-IN, SI-MIZS, SE-FORMAS