Growing
the Seaweed Innovation

Recent geopolitical shifts have exposed Europe’s reliance on imported raw materials.

This vulnerability directly threatens our industrial stability and stalls our competitive edge.

Healthy oceans are the engine  for a thriving green future.

The story of our seas must be rewritten, turning climate challenges into industrial sustainability and competitiveness.

The project

SALINA (Scalable Macroalgae Cultivation Systems for Innovative Applications in the Food, Cosmetic and Construction sectors) brings sustainable seaweed farming and advanced marine science directly to European shores. By turning local seaweed into high-value ingredients, we deliver circular, resource-efficient solutions for food, beauty, and material products while helping the ocean thrive.

How

Strains-to-site allocation  and cultivation strategies

SALINA designs and deploys a portfolio of scalable cultivation approaches in four Demonstration Sites, each acting as a specialised living lab for its specific environment. Discover them

Whole & Cascading Biomass Processing

SALINA uses a step-by-step extraction process that unlocks proteins, carbohydrates, and fibers sequentially, utilising green technologies and waste heat to define a zero-waste biorefinery strategy.

Product formulation  & validation

SALINA translates raw marine biomass into high-performance, validated ingredients for the food, cosmetic, and construction sectors.

Environmental & socioeconomic sustainability assessment

SALINA uses high-tech eDNA data to track the seaweed’s impact from spore to final product, proving its farms benefit the ocean, the economy, and coastal communities.

Stakeholder co-creation and social acceptance

SALINA embeds inclusive co-creation throughout the value chain to align it with societal needs, via multi-actor engagement and perception analysis.

Exploitation, TEA  and policy uptake

SALINA provides the direct pathway for it to reach the market, attract investment, and integrate into EU policy frameworks, combining exploitation planning, techno-economic assessment (TEA), and active policy dialogue.