There have been awards of funding for Orkney out of the latest grants from The Marine Fund Scotland 2026-27.

Fisheries Management Scotland in Orkney have been awarded the total cost of their project, £94,217. 36. The project is the ‘Development of a national platform for automated fish monitoring using sonar’. Description : This project will use advanced AI and Machine Learning approaches to automate the detection, classification, and quantification of fish from ARIS sonar footage.

A young fisher in Orkney has been awarded £75,000 part of a total project cost of £187,500. This is for a private individual to purchase their first vessel.

Orkney Fisheries Association has received an award of £39,892 which is the total amount required for facility upgrades including solar panels and batteries.

In total 99 seafood and aquaculture projects will share in more than £16 million of the Scottish Government funding, supporting an estimated 122 jobs in coastal and island communities.

The Aquaculture sector was the biggest winner out of the total funding awarded :

• Aquaculture, £5.4m
• Sea Fisheries ,£4.7m
• Seafood Processing, £2m
• Marketing, £1.8m
• Recreational fishing & Wild Salmon,£1.5m
• Marine Litter, £0.5m
• Other (marine planning, conservation), £0.4m

The largest single funding awards went to : Seafood Scotland, £1,872,820.09; and MOWI Scotland Ltd, £1,776,771.00.

“Our seafood and aquaculture sectors are of vital importance to our coastal and island communities and a crucial contributor to Scotland’s economy, so it is great that this £16 million round of the Marine Fund Scotland will support projects that aim to create a total of 122 jobs.

“This fund has awarded over £86 million to 499 projects since 2021, generating more than £185 million investment.

“By backing industry, we want to play our part in increasing aquaculture production and sales by £3.5 million. The successful projects will improve the marine and coastal environment, provide essential data collection, training, and education, while giving people the chance to get involved in helping to preserve our incredible seas.

“Over the next 12 years, Scotland has only been allocated £28 million of the total £360 million Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund set by UK Government, despite the importance of our fishing and aquaculture sectors, ignoring that Scotland makes up more than 60% of the UK’s fishing capacity, setting our fleet at a serious disadvantage. We continue to work with the sector to demonstrate the value Scottish seas bring to our economy and communities.”