5.3M€ - THE GREATEST PORTUGUESE INVESTMENT IN A TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE BLUE ECONOMY
The TEC4SEA infrastructure has been created by Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência (INESC TEC) and Centro de Investigação Tecnológica do Algarve (CINTAL); it includes a number of laboratories across the country with the goal of developing technologies to be used in the sea environment, increasing the technical capacity of companies and forming highly qualified personnel.
Which type of companies will benefit from this platform?
“On the one hand, the traditional industries, such as fisheries and aquaculture, fish processing, transport, ship building and repair, and ports. On the other hand, emerging industries, mainly deep sea mining, deep sea oil&gas exploitation, Hi-Tec products and services, offshore renewable energy sources, offshore aquaculture, biotechnology, maritime surveillance and security”, explained Augustin Olivier, member of the INESCTEC team involved in the TEC4sea infrastructure.
The objectives for the traditional industries include increasing the competitiveness of the companies that operate on the abovementioned areas. In the case of emerging industries, TEC4sea will raise the technological capacity of the companies.
“This infrastructure brings an added value to the companies, since it provides logistic, technical and human support along the development, test and validation process and eases the transfer of technology to the market”, added Augustin Olivier.
TEC4sea has laboratories from Porto (in the north) to Faro (in the south). In Porto, INESCTEC has made available six laboratories to support this infrastructure, but TEC4sea wants the port of Leixões to become its centre of gravity in the northern region of Portugal. Moreover, CINTAL offers its laboratories in Algarve.
What is the importance of TEC4sea in the Portuguese sea economy?
The size of the Portuguese Continental Platform means that the area of the country will increase up to about 4 million km2, which represents more than 40 times the present area of Portugal. In addition, Portugal has the third European economic zone and a privileged geostrategic position in the crossing of important maritime routes.
“We have a so vast and deep ocean platform, that we only need to truly start exploiting it. The truth is that 30% of the European ocean floor are still waiting to be exploited”, concluded Augustin Olivier.
The TEC4SEA platform is open to other entities. The infrastructure website (www.tec4sea.com) will briefly provide information for those that want to join.
