Besides institutional activities, the unit is involved in a range of competitive and technology transfer activities, which take the form of contract research work through partnership in shared-cost actions' under the EC Research Framework Programme, competitive support for the European Commission and third-party work.

The unit extends its activity through the following competitive projects:

• AQUATRACE: The development of tools for tracing and evaluating the genetic impact of fish from aquaculture
• ARGOMARINE: Automatic Oil-Spill Recognition and Geopositioning integrated in a Marine Monitoring Network
• ASCOS: Aviation Safety and Certification of new Operations and Systems
• CFP - SOCIOEC: Socio economic effects of management measures of the future
• CONTAIN: Container Security Advanced Information Network
• FishPopTrace: The Structure of Fish Populations and Traceability of Fish and Fish Products
• I2C: Integrated System for Interoperable sensors & Information sources for Common abnormal vessel behaviour detection & Collaborative identification of threat (I2C)
• MYFISH: Maximising yield of fisheries while balancing ecosystem, economic and social concerns
• NEREIDS: New Service Capabilities for Integrated and Advanced Maritime Surveillance
• SeaBILLA: Sea Border Surveillance
• WIMAAS: Wide Maritime Area Airborne Surveillance