Introduction
Knowledge is the basis for the development of aquaculture. Late last millennium the Norwegian seafood industry realized that public funding did not fulfill the needs of the industry. An initiative was done to establish a system where all businesses had to contribute. The result was the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF), funded by a tax of 0.3 percent of export value on all seafood exported from Norway. Over the years since 2001 when FHF was established, more than 2000 small and large projects have been funded, covering all Norwegian seafood industry. The budget has increased from less than 8 mill ��� in 2001 to 40 mill ��� in 2025. The projects cover areas from basic biology, ie sequencing the Atlantic salmon genome or microbiota in salmon, to technology focused projects to prevent escapees from fish farms or water quality in RAS systems. Thematic areas have always been decided by the industry, while scientific methodology, evaluation of results, and dissemination of these is the responsibility of the research groups. The basis is "open knowledge", all industry in Norway, and other countries in fact, can access the results. How was and is it possible, how are the experiences and what results have been achieved? Can the same or similar models be established in other countries to speed up knowledge building? Can this be of help to the total European aquaculture industry?
References
For projects overview – even in Norwegian (FHF is funded by the Norwegian industry) - an open, public database covering all projects is available on About FHF (English) – FHF