Who holds it together? Fishermen’s associations as bridging organisations in science-industry collaborations

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European fishing industry stakeholders increasingly engage in collaborations with scientists to improve the knowledge base for fisheries science and management. In this paper, the roles of industry stakeholders in collaborative initiatives to make long-term management plans are investigated. We argue that, in such contexts, fishermen’s associations can fill roles as bridging organisations by connecting actors from different knowledge domains. Two case studies on mixed-actor collaborations to make management plans were re-analysed with focus on the bridging needs that emerged. The first case is the Irish-Danish initiative to generate a knowledge base to support management of a new fishery for boarfish (Capros aper) in the Northeast Atlantic. A management plan presented to the European Commission by the Pelagic Advisory Council was one of several tangible outcomes produced within this science-industry collaboration. The second case is the initiative taken by the North Sea Advisory Council to generate a management plan for Nephrops fisheries in the North Sea with “bottom-up” involvement by the sector. The collaborations studied developed opportunistically without predefined specifications of actor roles and tasks. The findings indicate that fishermen’s associations can fill important bridging roles in such ad-hoc and unstructured knowledge production processes if they manage to align views internally. Engaging in bridging activities may well be a strategic choice for such associations in situations when actors and processes need connecting for them to reach their goals.