OASIS Project: how to boost the emerging blue careers in the Mediterranean aquaculture by blue skills’ passport contribution

In 2018, the Mediterranean region involved an estimated 35,000 aquaculture farms, contributing 2.8 million tonnes of aquatic organism production and employing over 500,000 individuals. However, a significant portion of this workforce lacks formal qualifications - blue skills passport or a certified blue carrier - hindering the sector's potential. Topics as Blue Growth (BG), Artificial Intelligence (AI) Skills, Open Science (OS) and Biosecurity are the baseline for integrating Blue-Green and Circular economies. This paper explores how OS and AI, coupled with a skills-based approach, can drive a growing demand for innovative and sustainable seafood ecosystems. Indeed, the major barriers to evolve the BG as an ecosystem are identified in multidisciplinary challenges which requires to overcome the gap in shortage of scientific and entrepreneurial skills, alongside upskilling and reskilling the workforce. Promoting and valorizing by-products is crucial to bridge the significant knowledge gap regarding aquaculture's full potential. By fostering knowledge sharing through a skills-based approach, OS paves the way for a new approach to sustainable development and the exploitation of new raw materials. This study employs a mixed-methodology approach, combining surveys, CV analysis based on skills identification, the adoption of bottom-up tools like Lego Serious Play™, and analyses such as PESTLE and ESG, scanned by AI under the Quantum Labour Analysis framework. The results yield insights into skills trends and map potential solutions to address the lack of awareness, knowledge, and skilled workforce within the emerging Blue Economy, with a specific focus on aquaculture. This includes both the seafood industry and the by-products derived from blue sector exploitation, which are considered key to achieving effective integration with green and circular economies, fostering sustainable yield insights into skills trends and map potential solutions to address the lack of awareness, knowledge, and skilled workforce within the emerging Blue Economy, with a specific focus on aquaculture. Finally, the paper proposes a tool incorporating an algorithm that considers long-term sustainability parameters and generates a human-centered, unified Skills Passport, thereby maximizing positive aquaculture practices across supply chains and creating added value in Mediterranean aquaculture through the application of OS and AI.