An appropriately designed regulatory framework should lead to sustainable outcomes in terms of climate and environmental impacts, fish welfare, biosecurity, international competitiveness and economic benefits and costs to different societal groups.

A regulatory development process requires competence building in government agencies and private sector, legislative innovations, organizational innovations, technological and digital innovations. In this process, it is essential to combine knowledge from government, research, aquaculture value chain companies and other stakeholders. To achieve this, we apply a Responsible Innovation Lab (RIL) framework, that builds on  concepts and guidelines of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and living labs.

RIL is a novel concept which enables co-creation of knowledge between participants and is designed to learn from innovation in real time through collective search and exploration processes. Participants are encouraged to reduce uncertainty about innovations, gaining knowledge along the way in an iterative learning-by-doing and doing-by-learning process.

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The RIL concepts of anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness will be employed at different stages of this process to move towards to a shared understanding of sustainability issues and trade-offs, and how different technological and regulatory choices can affect sustainability outcomes. Particular attention is given to involvement of ministry and government agencies.

Key questions to address

• What is the state of knowledge, uncertainties, and dilemmas on relevant concerns for design of offshore aquaculture policies and regulation (e.g., economic, climate, environmental, biosecurity, 8 technical and human safety, other ocean stakeholders)?
• How should public regulation and allocation of offshore aquaculture farm sites and biomass be designed, including design of processes and documentation?
• What standards and certifications need to be developed for aquaculture offshore farms, operation of farms and interaction with vessels?
• What is the potential for innovation in coordinated, digital and remote public monitoring and inspection of offshore aquaculture installations and operations?
• How can regulation of sea-based closed containment systems be designed to secure sustainable supply of post smolt?

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• RIL is a novel concept which enables co-creation of knowledge between participants and is designed to learn from innovation in real time through collective search and exploration processes. Participants are encouraged to reduce uncertainty about innovations, gaining knowledge along the way in an iterative learning-by-doing and doing-by-learning process[33].

• The RIL concepts of anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness will be employed at different stages of this process to move towards to a shared understanding of sustainability issues and trade-offs, and how different technological and regulatory choices can affect sustainability outcomes. Particular attention is given to involvement of ministry and government agencies, and in particular ensuring that their integrity is maintained throughout the processes.

• Researchers from UiS and other partner institutions will, using knowledge produced in other WPs and sub-projects, prepare discussion papers and presentations prior to RIL meetings to provide initial knowledge base and facilitate productive RIL processes. Based on output from RIL arenas discussion papers will be further developed and finalized, and also research papers for international peer-reviewed journals.