Third Network

Third Precompetitive RITA Co-creation Network for the Fish and Aquaculture Industry

The objective is to develop a co-creation network dedicated to Quebec’s fisheries and aquaculture sectors, focusing on the Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Côte-Nord and Bas-Saint-Laurent regions. Despite the sustained efforts of the fishing and aquaculture industry, this very strategic part of the Quebec economy (and especially of the maritime regions) is facing various regulatory issues, the management of by-products resulting from the processing of raw materials (fish, crustaceans, algae, etc.), the quality of processed products and their preservation, the optimization and automation of processes, and the marketing of products. The RITA Consortium, in collaboration with the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ), the Réseau Québec Maritime (RQM), MERINOV and the Association Québécoise de l'Industrie de la Pêche (AQIP), has created a co-creation network that is specially designed to support these sectors of transformation in Quebec. This network will focus on the challenges facing stakeholders over the next two years, while providing competent scientific resources for the next ten years.

The fruitful exchanges during our first co-creation workshop and the surveys carried out have identified the research and technology transfer axes with a great potential to transform the stakes into opportunities. These axes are cross-cutting and integrate “quality and safety”, “technological efficiency”, “best positioning” and “sustainability” to meet current and future challenges in the fishing and aquaculture sectors. The prioritization and validation of these axes with a view to establishing a network of collaborative research and technology transfer were the main objective of our second workshop held on November 4 and 5, 2021.