INESCTEC.OCEAN has launched in Portugal as a center of excellence designed to promote ocean engineering and research in the development of emerging ocean sectors such as offshore renewable energy sources, deep-sea monitoring, environmental impact assessment of human activities at sea, and offshore aquaculture.
Funded by €15 million (USD$15.8 million) endowments the European Union’s Horizon Europe Program and from the Portuguese Government, the center of excellence will focus on developing a network of onshore and offshore technological infrastructures to develop and test technologies; advanced training; and creating of synergies between science and the business sector, boosting science-based innovation.
“We foresee the creation of four scientific programs (in liaison with the industry) dedicated to fields of knowledge like Marine Structures, Marine Robotics, Ocean Energy and Ocean Data, as well as the active participation in more than 50 cooperation projects with the industry sector, towards addressing the needs of the market,” said José Manuel Mendonça, responsible for the high-level coordination of the INESCTEC.OCEAN application and former chairman of the Board of Directors of INESC TEC
The Center of Excellence will also focus on education and advanced human resources training, for example by funding PhD grants covering several ocean engineering domains.
Portugal holds one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world–the fifth at European level–reaching more than 1.7 million square kilometers and representing 95% of the national territory. The maritime triangle that lies between mainland Portugal and the archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores constitutes 48% of all marine waters connected to the European continent.
“Our territory features privileged conditions for the development of the Blue Economy; now, the country will benefit from a Centre of Excellence, which aims to leverage all this potential – through research and ocean engineering,” Mendonça said.
The six-year program features Fórum Oceano, Cluster do Mar Português, and Administração dos Portos do Douro, Leixões and Viana do Castelo. It will also welcome the Norwegian R&D Centre SINTEF.OCEAN, the main Norwegian ocean research and development center, with more than 70 years of experience, taking on a mentoring role in the process of setting up INESCTEC.OCEAN.
INESC TEC has been developing multiple projects in the ocean sector and fundraising for ocean-related R&D projects went from €4 million a year in 2017 to more than €13.3 million a year in 2022, with a team of more than 70 researchers. In addition, INESC TEC is responsible for leading technological infrastructures like BLUE HUB Leixões I, the CEO – Companhia da Energia Oceânica and TEC4Sea, which includes the research vessel Mar Profundo.
