Our Origins

In January 2020, Unn Laksá started a dialogue with some of the major seafood companies in the Faroe Islands to examine the potential for establishing an independent, not-for-profit research centre to focus on aspects relating to sustainable development and innovation within the seafood sector. The dialogue was very constructive and two months later, Blue Resource was co-founded by Syntesa, Christian í Grótinum, Varðin, Framherji and Hiddenfjord.

The foundations for Blue Resource were laid some 15 years ago with the ambition and determination of Ólavur Gregersen through his activities in Bitland sp/f, and later Syntesa sp/f. Back then, Ólavur came into contact with ambitious individuals from Matís and Nofima as well as leaders within the Faroese business and research community. In 2009, a Letter of Intent was signed with Matís in Iceland about collaboration on research in relation to innovation within the seafood sector. In 2010, this resulted in the international research project Ecofishman, funded by the 7th framework programme of the European Union. Since then, Syntesa has continuously been engaged in international research projects, building capacities and creating an extensive network of collaboration across European research institutions and beyond. During these years, over 20 research and innovation projects have been funded with Nordic, European and US research and development grants.

In 2013, Unn Laksá was hired as research project manager in Syntesa. In her time at Syntesa, she coordinated the Nordic project ‘Everything Ashore’ on utilisation of the demersal fisheries in the Nordic countries. She has also led Syntesa’s contribution in the EU research projects MareFrame, ClimeFish and worked on numerous other projects, such as Aquavitae and NextGenProteins. In 2017 Juliana Arias joined the Syntesa team as researcher, where she has mainly worked on the EU H2020 projects MareFrame, ClimeFish and FarFish. Sveinn Agnarsson and Magni Laksáfoss, who both are associate economists at Blue Resource, have also been working on the MareFrame and ClimeFish EU projects.

It has been a long ambition to cement these activities more firmly within the Faroese society by building upon the achievements within a non-for-profit research entity. This ambition was achieved on on March 30th 2020 with the establishment of Blue Resource.