The Sea Knowledge and Economy Cluster was acknowledged as a Collective Efficiency Strategy by COMPETE's Management Authority on 27 July 2009.

We can safely say that the advantages of the future Parque de Ciência e Tecnologias do Mar will be an important contribution to the attainment of some of the operational measures opportunely presented by the Cluster of the Sea, which was recently approved as a Strategy of Collective Efficiency.

To account for this, there is the fact that Parque was considered a project that is crucial to the aforementioned Cluster, since it promotes the development of new, marketable products and services in the domain of the marine economy, more specifically by implementing the development and application of new technologies to the marine environment; fostering entrepreneurship of a technological nature in activities related to the marine economy; or encouraging the development of technology transfer through cooperation between companies and between them and R&D centres with the aim of modernizing and innovating the Cluster's business structures and its internationalization. The intervention of P. Mar combined with the future intervention of the managerial entity of the Cluster (OCEANO XXI) will make it possible to recreate (within the infra-structure's action programme) an element that is essential in helping to stimulate and create a structure for a Cluster to the Sea involving the North of Portugal.

This Cluster, with its main office in the Northern Region, involves a broad and diverse set of entities that represent regional and national interests, which belong to the main branches of the economic structure underlying this collective efficiency strategy, with the aim of diversifying the regional economic base, thus creating new activities and services and fostering the creation of alternative markets with higher economic value, reinforcing the competitiveness and productivity of the sea industries, and increasing skilled employment.

The Sea Knowledge and Economy Cluster is made up of a diverse set of branches and activities, namely:

• Fishing, aquaculture, salt farming and the fish-processing industry;
• Marine and port activities and logistics;
• Marine industries;
• Processing industries that support marine activities: textiles and clothing, plastic, moulds, wood, metalworking and mechanical engineering;
• Cruises, recreational sailing and marine tourism;
• IT;
• Submarine robots;
• Marine biotechnology;
• Renewable sources of energy.