BIOAQUA Working Groups are jointly working on a state-of-the-art analysis aiming to identify key trends and opportunities in relation to biomolecular solutions for the future of aquaculture. After a series of four creative workshops, the main trends in which the study will focus have been identified; it is now time to dig into valuable information, extract knowledge and take decisions about research, development, cooperation and dissemination.
It was September 25th 2024, and Eva García Muntión, Chair of BIOAQUA and leader of WG5 (“Informed Creativity”) was getting ready for the 1st creative workshop. She had to lead WG4 members to identify key trends, threats and knowledge gaps at the intersections between biomolecular solutions and aquaculture, thinking on the next 10 years, and understanding priorities of the different stakeholders represented. The task was at the same time concrete and very wide in scope, so her challenge was to make the workshop really fruitful. She held on to a thought: “We are now looking for questions, not yet answers. These will come later, through desktop research”. So she decided to apply the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), from the Right Questions Institute (linked to Harvard University); she had experience with this tool, which had worked so well for her in the past, and had an idea about how to adapt it to BIOAQUA’s context. The process would be: 1) launching a statement or challenge to participants (e.g., What are the main bottlenecks for aquaculture in the coming ten years?); 2) jointly formulating all possible questions around it; 3) altogether revising the way questions were formulated, playing with open/closed questions, as suggested by QFT, but also qualitative/quantitative and convergent/divergent ones (special adaptation); and finally 4) Voting for priorities to find consensus. It worked very well! She was ready to repeat this exercise with members of WG2, WG3 and WG4, which happened between September and early October. Each time, the initial statement or challenge was adapted and varied, and dynamics adapted to the different audience and the fact that some members belong to several WGs and could take part in several workshops (they could not be just repetitions).
The result was a list of 10-20 topics per WG, with one top priority in each of them + 3 second level focuses. Creative workshops worked very well because all participants engaged deeply and positively, discussed transparently and openly, and contributed with deep knowledge and extensive experiences. Such a pleasure to work with BIOAQUA’s community. Now Eva´s team at RTDI could start working on finding answers to the questions!
Of course, it is not possible to find final answers to questions such as “What kind of biomolecular solutions can be employed to halt antimicrobial resistance in aquaculture or to improve fish welfare?”. The aim was to scout for scientific advancements and technological developments which can open up doors towards solving crucial challenges faced by aquaculture and water ecosystems for the coming decade. Then a lot of research will be needed, and BIOAQUA’s members will be able to address this as a community.
What we have gathered so far and what will come next
The list of topics was a ball to get rolling towards a full technology scouting process. The first step was to compile, compare, merge and tag the different priorities selected by each WG, so that a joint list of topics was prepared; then it had to be converted into full search chains to be used with different information sources and tools. Scientific papers, R&D projects, patents, market studies… all need to be explored, using tools such as ChatGPT, Poe, Cordis, Patent Scope and Linknovate.
This will take time, and results are expected for the first term of 2025. The idea is to deliver what we are calling “Technology Briefs” that can help choosing titles for joint papers amongst BIOAQUA Members, joint R&D projects, experiments, discussions…, and a lot more for the coming 3 years of the Action lifetime.
So far, the main scouting topics have been fully formulated, and some preliminary exploration has been performed already. These preliminary results we are openly sharing into the following infographic.
If you have any feedback, please come to us by writing and email to evagarcia@rtdi.eu
