MATIS OHF

Their core work

Matís is Iceland's leading food and biotech research institute, specializing in seafood science, food safety, aquaculture, and marine biorefinery. They develop decision support tools for fisheries management, work on alternative protein sources (microalgae, insects, single-cell proteins), and apply microbiology and metagenomics to food systems and biotechnology. Beyond food, they maintain a niche in extremophile research and astrobiology, exploiting Iceland's unique volcanic and subglacial environments as natural laboratories.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In 2015-2018, Matís focused heavily on fisheries economics, seafood market tools, and food authenticity networks, while maintaining a distinctive side interest in planetary science and astrobiology through Icelandic extreme environments. From 2019 onward, the emphasis shifted decisively toward sustainability, alternative proteins, microbiome applications, and circular food systems — reflecting the broader European push toward food security and bioeconomy. The astrobiology and extremophile work has continued but become a smaller share of their portfolio as food-sector projects scaled up significantly.

Matís is moving from traditional fisheries research toward circular bioeconomy and alternative protein systems, making them an increasingly relevant partner for food security and sustainability consortia.

How they like to work

Matís operates as both a project leader and a reliable consortium partner — they coordinated 6 of 24 projects (25%), including their largest-funded ones, showing they can manage complex multi-partner research. With 405 unique consortium partners across 51 countries, they are a well-connected hub rather than a closed-network organization. Their participation in both small CSA networks and large RIA/IA consortia shows flexibility in adapting to different project scales and roles.

Matís has built an exceptionally wide network of 405 unique partners across 51 countries, remarkable for an Icelandic institute. Their geographic reach spans all of Europe plus Atlantic and global fisheries regions, with particularly strong ties to Nordic and North Atlantic research communities.

What sets them apart

Matís occupies a rare niche as an Icelandic research centre that bridges North Atlantic marine expertise with mainstream European food and biotech research. Their combination of fisheries management, marine biorefinery, extremophile biology, and food safety under one roof is unusual — few organizations can offer both deep-sea microbiology and food supply chain analysis. Iceland's unique natural environments (subglacial lakes, volcanic systems, pristine marine ecosystems) give them access to biological resources and field conditions that continental European institutes simply cannot replicate.

Highlights from their portfolio

• NextGenProteins
  Their largest project (EUR 1.76M, coordinator role) — converting underutilized resources into alternative proteins for food and feed, directly aligned with EU protein strategy.
• Virus-X
  Second-largest project (EUR 1.36M, coordinator) exploring viral metagenomics for biotechnology innovation — showcases their strength in extremophile bioprospecting.
• FarFish
  Coordinated development of results-based fisheries management tools for EU Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements, demonstrating policy-relevant applied research capacity.