Eco-Innovation through the Scary Seafood Platform: Catalyzing the Innovation Ecosystem

Abstract

Improvements in health care, nutrition availability, and increased life standards have led to significant growth in the global population during the last few decades. For the same reason, the exploration of new sources of nutrition becomes crucial. The need for environmentally friendly innovation through a collective approach and increased usage of underutilized resources laid the foundation for the development of the Scary Seafood project. The purpose of this study is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the outcomes of scary seafood as a platform of eco-innovation and its potential contributions to the innovation ecosystem of Västra Götaland. The combination of eco-innovation, a platform for collaboration, and innovation ecosystem theories laid the foundation for the theoretical framework. The triangulation method of this study consists of an integration of semi-structured interviews (9 participants) and an online survey questionnaire (63 respondents). Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview results while descriptive statistics were used to analyze the online questionnaire results. The findings of this study indicate the Scary Seafood initiative is a platform for eco-innovation. The contributions of the Scary Seafood platform to the innovation ecosystem are the identification of the existing gap in the supply chain, highlighting the need for new investments in the maritime industry, and the need for evaluation and review of current policies to develop new policies and regulations in the water and sea fields.