July 01, 2026
eBOS Technologies Joins 24 Partners to Launch FIDEL: A Horizon Europe Initiative to Combat Illegal Fishing Through Digital Innovation
Event Highlights
The FIDEL project officially kicked off in May 2026 with its inaugural Kick-off Meeting held in Volos, Greece on the 23rd – 24th June 2026, hosted by the project coordinator, the University of Thessaly (UTHE). The meeting brought together representatives from all 24 consortium partners spanning 14 countries, marking the formal launch of this ambitious three-year Horizon Europe Innovation Action. During the meeting, partners aligned on work plan responsibilities, technical architecture, pilot planning, and the project’s governance structures, setting a clear path for the first reporting period through Month 18. The Kick-off Meeting also served as the first opportunity for technical and end-user partners to meet face-to-face, facilitating productive cross-disciplinary dialogue between software engineers, fisheries scientists, fishing enterprises, competent authorities and policy experts. Initial discussions on the system architecture, blockchain-based data exchange layer, AI-driven monitoring components and pilot deployment scenarios laid the groundwork for the intensive development phase beginning from Month 7.
Project Overview and Milestones
FIDEL – A ground-breaking Framework for Integrated Data-Driven IntelligEnce in Fisheries Monitoring, ControL and Surveillance – is a Horizon Europe Innovation Action (Grant Agreement 101286574) funded with nearly €6 million in EU support. The project addresses one of the most pressing challenges in European fisheries governance: the widespread prevalence of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which undermines marine biodiversity, distorts markets and weakens the effectiveness of EU fisheries policy. FIDEL’s response is a holistic digital platform that integrates AI-based species recognition, blockchain-enabled secure data sharing, IoT vessel sensors, satellite surveillance, electronic logbooks and DNA-based fish identification into a single interoperable framework validated across four real-world pilot campaigns – covering small-scale Mediterranean and Atlantic fisheries, recreational fisheries in Croatia and Hungary, and EU long-distance operations in the Indian Ocean.
With the Kick-off Meeting now complete, the project enters its co-design and definition phase. Key early milestones include the publication of the project website by Month 3, the delivery of the first user needs and requirements report by Month 6, and the commencement of technology development activities from Month 7. The first major technical milestone – Innovation Flame – is targeted for Month 16, delivering initial versions of all core FIDEL technologies.
eBOS Technologies plays a central role in FIDEL at both the technical and strategic levels. As WP6 Leader and Innovation Manager for the consortium, eBOS is responsible for guiding the project’s exploitation strategy, managing intellectual property across 24 partners, conducting market analysis, and developing the commercial roadmap for FIDEL’s key results. On the technical side, eBOS leads Task 4.1, driving the design and development of the project’s energy-efficient blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) infrastructure – the secure backbone through which fisheries data is shared in a tamper-proof, auditable way between vessels, operators and competent authorities. eBOS also contributes to AI/ML integration, pilot deployment in the Mediterranean Cyprus context, and capacity building activities throughout the project lifetime.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
