About the project
The advance of new technologies, the rapid expansion of big data, and the deep digitalization of society that allows consumers to trace products to their origin, or firms to live stream their trawl hauls online, opens hitherto unknown - and unassessed - potential for more effective resource control and increased value creation. In particular, there has been a surge in new technologies increasing the effectiveness of the enforcement activities, such as satellite monitoring of vessels and electronic logbooks. Compared to traditional fisheries enforcement, this allows for control of all operations of every vessel at all times, which significantly boosts enforcement efforts.
At the same time, such approaches may also raise serious concerns about privacy and data protection that may easily undermine compliance unless they are accompanied by conscious efforts to maintain maximum transparency. This implies that the management system carefully has to take into account the repercussions of monitoring and compliance, both in the short- and long-term, which will be at the heart of the research.
We also analyze how new technologies may enhance the value created from the oceans, for example by allowing for finer selectivity or increased seafood traceability and how management may contribute to harnessing the full potential of the oceans. Because the impact of new technologies on compliance is difficult to study, we approach it from different angles.
FishTech uses empirical, experimental, and theoretical economics as well as biological modelling and qualitative approaches from social science to understand what determines compliance behavior and generate the knowledge that informs management how to strengthen compliance behavior.
FishTech brings together the Norwegian social and economic marine research centers of Bergen, Oslo, and Tromsø to join forces and further strengthen Norway's world leading position in fisheries science.
A schematic overview of the project. WP 1 analyzes short-run compliance and repercussions on long-run fleet dynamics. WP2 is looking at the contextual factors of compliance and links regulation to perception and actions of fishers. WP3 analyzes how new Technologies are affecting management, whether through monitoring and control, but also investigates how it may help to enhance value creation based on marine Resources.
Objectives
The aim of FishTech is to assess whether, and in which way, new technologies may be used to best strengthen fisheries management.
To achieve this objective, we will:
a) obtain a better understanding of what determines short- and long-term compliance and harvesting decisions and how this is affected by new technologies,
b) study the interactions between regulatory legitimacy, new ways of monitoring, and compliance,
c) analyze the effect of new technologies on effective resource control and improved value creation.
The relevance and timeliness of the topic, as well as the innovative combination of qualitative research, economic experiments, mathematical modeling, and statistical data analysis means that FishTech holds the clear promise to both push the international research frontier, and deliver robust advice to national policy makers.
Financing
This Project is funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) (MARINFORSK)
RCN Project Number: 280541 (Project data bank at RCN)
UiO Project Number: 421260
Cooperation
Nøstbakken, Richter, and Diekert have collaborated successfully in the past under the HAVKYST program, most recently on NFR project no. 243892 (SeaSurf) and 224818/E40 (REPIN).
The current project directly extends the collaboration between Bergen and Oslo in terms of marine ecosystem related research, which holds the promise of yielding significant synergies. In this project, they join forces with Kathrine Tveiterås (head of department at the Norwegian College of Fishery Science; NCFS) and Petter Holm (professor at NCFS) from Tromsø. Tveiterås and Holm have successfully carried out research projects on the interface between policy, science, and society within resource management, resulting in several high-profile publications and policy advice.
Together, FishTech’s project team achieves an inclusive and holistic approach of doing marine research in Norway. Moreover, the team extends beyond Norway and with Chris Costello (Bren School at UCSB, USA), it includes a world-leading expert in fisheries economics. Finally, Bruno Nkuiya (University of Alberta, Canada) is an expert in bio-economic modelling that adds important skill and perspective to the team.
Period
01.01.2018 - 30.06.2022