Canada’s Ocean Supercluster announces $29M Ocean Aware project

PHOTO: NOAA/Flickr

ST. JOHN’S, Nfld. — On July 28, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster announced the Ocean Aware project, which will help develop and commercialize solutions for monitoring fish health, fish movement, and the environment, and supporting both profitable and sustainable practices in the ocean.

Ocean Aware is a collaboration across ocean sectors in fisheries, aquaculture, energy, shipping, and ocean technology where the project team will develop aquaculture technology to monitor fish health, new approaches to stock assessment modeling and predictive fishing in the wild fishery, and increased capability to monitor marine life.

“As the country with the longest coastline, the Ocean Supercluster is helping Canada capitalize on our natural advantages, establishing itself as a hotbed for innovation and collaboration,” said Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and industry, in a prepared statement. “The Ocean Aware project is a great example of the supercluster’s ability to bring together a variety of industry partners to develop new aquaculture technology and further support sustainable fishing practices.”

With a total project value of $29 million, the Ocean Supercluster will provide $13.74 million in funding for the project, with $15.7M in funding coming from industry partners.

“The Ocean Aware project is a game-changing project that demonstrates the transformational opportunities we have in ocean innovation when we bring partners from across ocean sectors together,” said Kendra MacDonald, CEO, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. “This will create significant benefits for Canadians now and for generations to come. To bring this to fruition while we continue to see the impacts of a global pandemic only adds to its significance.”