Research project Smart4SAM and SmartDots: better data for Monitoring, Accuracy and Reliable Training of essential biological data and quality assurance for sock assessments
General introduction
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) provides the EU’s legal framework for sustainable fisheries management, aiming to conserve fish stocks, protect marine environments, and balance economic and environmental sustainability. Achieving these goals requires accurate scientific advice based on the best available biological data. Smart4SAM supports this by ensuring accurate TAC (total allowable catches) and sustainable fishing limits under the CFP. The Data Collection Framework (DCF) requires EU Member States to collect standardized biological, economic, and fisheries data to support the CFP. Smart4SAM enhances data quality and accessibility, reduces uncertainty in estimates, and improves stock assessments. It also promotes international cooperation by advancing SmartDots as a harmonized quality assurance tool for biological data collection across the EU.
Research approach
The Smart4SAM project creates an end-to-end management framework for quality assurance of age and maturity data and their integration into stock assessments. It expands the ICES SmartDots platform with new functions for building Reference Collections, enabling self-training, quality control, and uncertainty quantification. Stock Assessment Models are tested and adapted to incorporate biological data uncertainty from standardized SmartDots outputs. The project advances Artificial Intelligence applications to support biological data interpretation and integration. Smart4SAM focuses on vulnerable, commercially, and ecologically important species, while its tools and guidelines will be transferable across species and regions.
Relevance/Valorization
As an open-access platform, SmartDots promotes the exchange of knowledge and data between scientists and fisheries managers in the EU and worldwide. Better quality assurance and less uncertainty in biological data lead to more reliable fish stock estimates and thus to better-informed TACs and catch limits. Smart4SAM is closely aligned with important European and international frameworks, such as the CFP, the DCF, the European Green Deal, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Digital Strategy, and the Open Data Directive, as well as with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In this way, the project supports both sustainable fisheries management and more transparent and data-driven policy-making.
Financing
EMFAF
