Maritime UK Solent is making grants of up to £500 available to three Solent-based maritime small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and businesses to join a delegation to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Leveraging off the sister cities agreement between Portsmouth and Halifax, there are significant maritime synergies between the Solent and Halifax that they would like to explore further to support their respective maritime economies to grow. In terms of the maritime landscape, Halifax has significant warship building capability, and maritime defence cluster. 

Other maritime specialisms they have include:

- Acoustics and Sonar
- Autonomous vessels
- Robotics
- Micro-satellites

The delegation will be in Halifax from Monday 25th September to Thursday 28th September. They are working with Portsmouth City Council and colleagues in Halifax to scope a programme to include visits to two maritime innovation centres - The Pier and Cove – plus business-to-business opportunities. The latter will be influenced by the nature of any SMEs that join them.

To help SMEs with the travel costs to join the delegation, Maritime UK Solent is making the £500 grants available to three accompanying Solent-based maritime businesses. If this is of interest to you, or you would like further information, please contact Maritime UK Solent’s Programme Manager, lorna.wagner@solentlep.org.uk