NSF Seafood Engine in New England (NSPIRE)

The NSF Engines award to the Seafood Engine in New England will work to reduce the more than $20B U.S. seafood deficit by increasing the volume, quality, consistency, variety, and, ultimately, value of American seafood products. To achieve this, the NSF Seafood Engine aims to provide growth opportunities to new and existing seafood and technology businesses, driven by an upskilled workforce and collaboration with research institutions, government agencies, and investors in a dynamic innovation ecosystem. The seafood industry is the oldest commercial enterprise in the nation, and the NSF Seafood Engine will work across the supply chain to introduce synergistic technological innovations at the harvest, processing, distribution, and marketing stages. This holistic strategy aims to generate cumulative value with improvements at each stage benefiting one another, thereby improving domestic supply and competitiveness in global markets while reducing dependence on foreign imports. The initial focus will be at the harvest stage – the starting point of the supply chain – building actionable ocean intelligence for commercial fishermen and aquaculturists alike. New ocean observation technologies have the power to efficiently map, characterize, and predict seafood resources and their environments at the scale of fishing grounds and aquaculture farms. With these capabilities, seafood harvesters can overcome challenges related to worker and product safety, production efficiency, and adverse impacts that are inherent to working in a dynamic and uncertain operational environment and present regulatory and marketing impediments. Sensor technologies, AI and other advanced analytics, and novel data visualizations can improve domain awareness and decision-making for both near-term operations and long-term business planning. From its start on the water, the NSF Seafood Engine will build new collaborations across the rest of the supply chain. A particular need is new and downscaled processing technologies that are tailored to diversified product streams, ports of different sizes, and varied business models, from small-scale family and owner-operator enterprises to larger corporations. Waste stream utilization can enable the supply chain to generate more value for each pound of seafood harvested. Cold chain technologies can benefit harvesters, processors, distributors, and marketers alike by improving product quality and expanding market access geographically and through time. Traceability technologies can also help to reach new consumers and markets, both at home and abroad. A critical long-term goal of supply chain initiatives by the NSF Seafood Engine is to re-shore the American seafood processing industry, which has experienced a steady drift overseas for many years. The NSF Seafood Engine is based in New England, the birthplace of the U.S. seafood industry. The source of 25% of all American seafood value, the New England seafood industry is a powerful cultural, political, and economic driver, both regionally and nationally. Anchored in the ocean-facing states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, the NSF Seafood Engine will capitalize on regional and national science, policy, and industry networks to export lessons and innovations across the U.S. The thriving blue tech sector in New England that is emerging alongside the historic seafood industry creates the wellspring of innovation that the NSF Seafood Engine will mobilize toward rejuvenating the supply chain. Use-Inspired Research & Development and Translation of Innovation to Impact strategies will focus on building close, high-trust, and sustained collaborations among seafood industry members, tech sector entrepreneurs, and researchers, merging essential technical capacity with industry know-how. Integration of government officials within these collaborations aims to capitalize on supportive policies and programs and foster sustained policy alignment. A collective aim of this approach is to develop both technological innovations and partnership models that can be adopted by other U.S. seafood regions and facilitate access to global markets for blue tech companies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.