Established in 2019, Blue Economy CRC is an independent not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and is a Cooperative Research Centre under the Australian Government’s CRC Program. With a 10-year life, the Blue Economy CRC brings together 44 industry, government, and research partners from ten countries with expertise in aquaculture, marine renewable energy, maritime engineering, environmental assessments and policy and regulation.

Consumers are increasingly focused on food and energy security, sustainability, andprovenance. Already, we are seeing strong international demand for offshore renewable energy and for sustainably farmed offshore aquaculture.

Taken together, Australia and New Zealand have an Exclusive Economic Zone of over 14million square kilometres of well managed clean oceans that provide enormous potentialto increase seafood and renewable energy production sustainably.

Realising this potential requires moving aquaculture and renewable energy systems offshore into high quality but remote and more exposed high-energy operating environments. This requires the development of new more robust structures, technologies and productionsystems that require less maintenance with increased autonomation.

They will need to withstand both regular and extreme weather events while being safely and economically managed. Consequently, these Blue Economy industries of the future will require a new and highly skilled workforce.

The Blue Economy CRC has been established to address these challenges and to facilitate a step change in the economic value of Australia’s new Blue Economy industries.