About the Marine Living Lab

Who are we?

The ILVO research group focusing on fisheries and marine activities has a decades-long tradition of collaborating with the broad fishing industry and other marine sectors: commercial fishing vessels, fish auction and processing, wind energy, sand and dredging industries, technology companies that provide equipment and develop and supply materials for use at sea and companies that focus on marine raw materials and organisms, and certainly also various (government) institutions charged with the protection of the marine environment and marine ecosystem services. It makes sense to refer to that ecosystem as a “Marine Living Lab”.

The Marine Living Lab stimulates collaboration with and between (potential) partners through substantiated communication and broad publicity. We offer the marine entrepreneur an integrated package of services and infrastructure, with a focus on innovation and sustainability. The keyword is co-creation, in both directions. In other words, the Marine Living Lab offers expertise, but is also requesting new expertise and technology that can bring about accelerated and sustainable innovation in the blue sectors.

Our mission

ILVO's Marine Living Lab stands for sustainable blue innovation for and together with all actors active on and around the sea, especially fisheries and aquaculture, including processing, retail and food quality, and (bio) technology companies interested in the exploitation of well known and less known aquatic molecules (blue biotech), sand extraction, dredging, wind energy, and other actors linked to impact reduction, marine spatial planning, coastal protection and nature conservation.