An exciting new project from the European Union’s (EU) INTERREG Atlantic Area funding programme will focus on assisting academics to transfer knowledge from their research in order to create value in the European Blue Economy. The Blue Economy represents all economic activities related to oceans, seas and coastal areas and includes industries such as fishing, shipbuilding, tourism and ocean energy. This growing sector is hugely important to Europe, and currently provides jobs for nearly 3.5 million people.
The project, EMPORIA4KT, will work to forge links between academia, business and government through tailored activities such as workshops targeting the needs of all key stakeholders.
António Grilo, EMPORIA4KT coordinator, states “Our motivation is to create social-economic impact from academic research activities within the blue economy sectors, while also transforming the relationship between the triple helix actors for innovation – academia, business and government.”
The project will train researchers to use the project’s knowledge transfer methodology to identify specific potential users of their research outputs and connect directly to them in a productive and effective way. It is expected that these connections will strengthen innovation and competitiveness in Atlantic Area Blue Economy, with high potential for increasing growth and generating jobs. This will in turn provide a greater return on research investment both for public and private bodies.
The EU’s Blue Economy has been consistently growing over the last decades, and its future is promising. However, investments in innovation are needed to create new business opportunities and manage our ocean and sea resources in a sustainable manner. Investment in projects such as EMPORIA4KT will bolster this growth while helping to protect the ocean and its resources.
The kick-off meeting will be held on Monday April 29th, 2019 in Lisbon (Portugal), gathering 14 partners from 5 countries. More information will be made available online via social media, and via a project website which is currently in development; www.emporia4kt.com.
