Deadline Date: April 07, 2026
The Responsible Fishing is inviting applications to support sustainable practices are needed to address challenges from illegal fishing, pollution, and climate change.
The programme focuses on addressing Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported (IUU) fishing, overfishing and stock depletion, habitat destruction and bycatch, monitoring of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), product traceability and certification, ghost gear and marine pollution, monitoring of Harmful Algae Blooms (HABs), and worker safety in fisheries.
The fishing industry is undergoing a major transformation driven by forthcoming regulations aimed at promoting sustainable practices, improving traceability, and protecting biodiversity. As the sector becomes fully digitalised, large volumes of data from sources such as electronic logging systems and onboard cameras will become available, creating opportunities to develop robust solutions that benefit responsible fishers, support climate and biodiversity commitments, and assist law enforcement authorities. The value of these solutions is further enhanced when vessel-generated data is integrated with space-based information.
Space-based data and technologies play a key role in supporting sustainable fisheries by enabling water quality monitoring, pollution detection, habitat health assessment, and improved understanding of fish habitats and distribution through indicators such as sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentration. These capabilities also support fish stock assessments and broader ecosystem management efforts.
The programme seeks motivated teams with credible business and technical expertise to develop space-enabled applications that address the identified priority areas. Applicants are expected to demonstrate clear customer engagement, defined customer needs, market potential for commercially viable services, technical feasibility with a clear implementation pathway, and strong added value from the use of space data or space-based technologies.
Participation in the programme is open to entities based in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
Selected teams will benefit from zero-equity funding, technical and commercial guidance, access to a broad network of partners, and the credibility of the ESA brand.
For more information, visit European Space Agency.
