​After its creation in January 2019, it didn’t take the Blue Cluster long to achieve its first successes in forging partnerships between companies, public institutions and centers of excellence. Their mission? To develop and promote sustainable economic activities related to the sea. The Blue Cluster is taking a so-called ‘ecosystem approach’ by putting the cohesion between ecology and economy first in everything it does.

“With a length of around 67 kilometers, Flanders’ coast is relatively small,” Ann points out. “This encourages companies and knowledge institutes to work together in a multidisciplinary way. To give an example, Flanders has played a role in the development of offshore wind energy technology from square one. One of the world’s first large-scale offshore wind turbine parks was built here. For a large part, we owe this pioneering role to the rich connections between knowledge and business here.”

“It goes without saying that Blue Cluster members continue to co-innovate in the field of renewable energy,” Ann adds, “but they also focus on domains such as coastal protection, fresh water production, maritime and inland transport connections, durable marine biomass production, ocean pollution and waste solutions, and blue tourism.”

“What’s more, we strongly believe that each domain has the power to create a ripple effect and boost innovative results in other domains. Take marine production. Introducing new business models for aquaculture in offshore wind parks not only helps combine multiple activities in the same location, it also has the potential to cut pollution – mussels, oysters and clams, for example, can act as natural water filters. The resulting products, in turn, could strengthen coastal tourism by adding a sustainable ingredient to the local menu, while providing a sustainable feedstock for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.”

Within months of its founding, the Blue Cluster successfully launched and received approval for 10 collaborative projects. Various industry leaders – some of which are Flanders-based branches of multinationals – promising start-ups and scientific institutes soon pledged to put their shoulders to the wheel. Ann: “Our members have a broad variety of specializations, ranging from seafood production, construction and dredging to renewable energy, monitoring systems, autonomous vessels and so on.”

“This cross-pollination harnesses a lot of potential for our ‘smart sea’ concept, which means: applying the Industry 4.0 mindset to benefit the blue economy. It’s no secret that sea-related activities are quite expensive. Not only do you need to invest in watercraft, safety equipment and a highly skilled crew, moving across the sea and having to wait for safe weather conditions can also take up a lot of time. By focusing on digitalization and enabling distant monitoring, our cluster members can optimize these processes and reduce costs. When applied to wind turbine parks, for example, this approach could lead to applications for predictive maintenance.”

Clearly, the world is your oyster when bright minds think alike. But working in unison doesn’t happen overnight. Ann: “To make sure that new and existing members are on the same page, we organize up to three major networking events per year. In between these larger events, we also set up taskforces for all our domains, where member companies and partner organizations get the chance to brainstorm on specific themes and topics, such as clean shipping.”

“Afterwards, the brainstorm results are crystalized into concrete roadmaps,” Ann continues. “With the help of our innovation managers, members can turn ideas that respond to these roadmaps into collaborative innovation projects, which are eligible for support by government agency Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship.”

“In setting up a collaboration framework for the Blue Cluster, we also learned a lot from the monthly inter-cluster meetings organized by Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship,” Ann continues. “We decided to establish a scientific advisory board with representatives from all of Flanders’ universities, strategic research centers, and marine and maritime knowledge institutes. These experts evaluate potential projects and share their opinions and recommendations with our steering committee, which mainly consists of company representatives. In other words, science provides the necessary guidance, while the world of business makes the final cut.”