EMBRIC strives to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery and innovation from marine bio-resources, while promoting new applications derived from marine organisms in fields such as drug discovery, novel foods and food ingredients, aquaculture selective breeding, bioremediation, cosmetics and bioenergy.

EMBRIC aimed to bring Europe’s marine blue bio-economy forward through the creation of a perennial cluster of research infrastructures (RIs), which will foster innovation in marine biotechnologies. In particular, EMBRIC was designed to propose integrated multidisciplinary value chains of services for the exploration of marine bioresources and their sustainable exploitation as sources of biomolecules and/or as whole organisms for food. 

Participating institutions (RIs) provided access to the full spectrum of the diversity of marine organisms (EMBRC) or were specialised in the provision of specific groups of organisms (MIRRI: prokaryotes and fungi; AQUAEXCEL: finfish). 

Using biological resources as raw materials, the cluster developed service-oriented workflows for natural product discovery and genetic selection in aquaculture. EU-OPENSCREEN contributed its services and expertise in the area of natural product discovery, while AQUAEXCEL did so in the aquaculture domain. ELIXIR provided cross-cutting expertise on data services and management. 

The cluster also included the coordinator of the social sciences ‘Research infrastructure for research and innovation policy studies’ (RISIS) project, specialised in the analysis of innovation ecosystems across Europe. RISIS was involved in establishing the technology transfer identity of EMBRIC. 

Case studies were designed to help test and refine workflows through Joint Development Activities (JDAs). This internal testing was complemented by the provision of access to EMBRIC services to external user communities in the second half of the project’s life span. 

Project dates: 1 June 2015 to 31 May 2019
EMBRC role: provision of access to diverse marine organisms
Contact: info@embrc.eu
Funding: €9,041,611 (Horizon 2020, under grant agreement number 654008) 
Learn more on CORDIS (European Commission website)

View the project website

Current projects

MARCO BOLO (Marine Coastal Biodiversity Long-term Observations)
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FAIR-EASE: Building Interoperable Earth Science & Environmental Services
The overall objective of FAIR-EASE is to customize and operate distributed and integrated services for observation and modelling of the Earth system, environment and biodiversity by improving the TRL of their different components implemented in close cooperation with user-communities, the European Open Science Cloud and research infrastructures in their design and sustainable availability
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ISIDORe: Integrated Services for Infectious Disease Outbreak Research
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DOORS: Developing an Optimal and Open Research Support system to unlock the potential for blue growth in the Black Sea
DOORS aims to harmonise research and provide the infrastructure to better understand the Black Sea, particularly its ecosystem characteristics.
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Atlantic ECOsystems assessment, forecasting & sustainability
The EU-funded AtlantECO project aims to develop and apply a novel, unifying framework that provides knowledge-based resources for a better understanding and management of the Atlantic Ocean and its ecosystem services. Focus areas include: microbiomes, plastic and the plastisphere, and seascape connectivity.
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IMBRSea: International Master in Marine Biological Resources
IMBRSea is a joint master program organised by 10 leading European universities in the field of marine sciences, supported by EMBRC. IMBRSea prepares students for the rapidly evolving demands of the blue bio-economy and research on the sustainable use of marine biological resources.
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