The Blue Bioeconomy Pact (#PBA) led by #Inovamar is one of the mobilizing agendas for corporate innovation recently funded by the European Union #NextGenerationEU through the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan (#PRR). It consists of a consortium of 83 national entities including 53 companies of all dimensions, from large multinational corporations to small-medium enterprises and start-ups, and 30 R&D institutions. The project aims to develop the sustainable use of marine resources, creating 52 new products, processes and services across multiple sectors such as aquaculture, fisheries, food and feed, textiles, biomaterials and human health. The consortium will invest a total amount of 133 M€, of which 94 M€ are financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Instituto Superior Técnico is involved in four of the nine PBA work packages with 1.5 M€ of funding: WP1 – “Biomaterials”, WP4 – “Food”, WP5 – “Algae”, and WP9 – “The Portuguese Blue Biobank”. The project at IST is coordinated by Prof Rodrigo Costa from BSRG-iBB and DBE and counts on expert contributions by Dr Teresa Cesário from iBB-2BRG (WP1), Dr Tina Keller-Costa and Prof Isabel Sá-Correia from iBB-BSRG (WP5 and WP9) and Prof Ana Clara Marques from CERENA and DEQ (WP4).