Palavas-les-Flots May 28th, 2025. Study visit to Palavas Marine Experimental Platform (IFREMER).
The third in-person meeting of the 2B-BLUE project partners – Boosting the Blue Biotechnology Community in the Mediterranean – continued on May 28 in the Occitanie region with a study visit to IFREMER’s facilities in Palavas-les-Flots at the Palavas Marine Experimental Platform (PEMP), the oldest marine fish farming research station in Europe.
The day began with an in-depth presentation of the Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation (MARBEC) Joint Research Unit, delivered by the platform’s head, Dr. Marie-Laure Bégout. This UMR is jointly overseen by four main institutions — IFREMER, CNRS, IRD, and the University of Montpellier — along with one secondary institution, INRAE. It is dedicated to studying marine biodiversity in lagoon, coastal, and offshore ecosystems at various levels of integration (molecular, individual, population, and community), as well as the human uses of this biodiversity. Dr. Bégout highlighted MARBEC’s interdisciplinary approach, which combines ecology, genetics, and aquaculture, to support innovation in blue biotechnology.
The visit continued with a tour of the PEMP facilities, focusing in particular on the larval rearing systems. These infrastructures, part of the European program Aquaexcel3.0 – AQUAculture infrastructures for EXCELlence in European fish research towards 2020 – are especially recognized for their controlled environments, which enable experimental research on the early life stages of marine species. The tour emphasized work related to species domestication, nutritional trials, and environmental impact assessments, underscoring Palavas’s strategic role in the development of Mediterranean aquaculture and marine biotechnology.
This inspiring visit to IFREMER’s PEMP provided a tangible glimpse into the kind of cutting-edge infrastructure and interdisciplinary expertise that can fuel our 2B-BLUE Transformation Labs. By bridging research, innovation, and real-world application, it reinforces our shared ambition to build a thriving, sustainable blue biotechnology ecosystem across the Mediterranean.
More information: UMR MARBEC
Photographs by 2B-BLUE partners.
