13 Jul The GVA-Thinkinazul in detail

The Kickoff meeting of the ThinInAzul Project in Marine Sciences of the Valencian Community (GVA-ThinInAzul), coordinated by JAUME PÉREZ-SÁNCHEZ from IATS and CARLOS VALLE PÉREZ from the University of Alicante, was held on Monday 27 June at the Torre la Sal Aquaculture Institute (IATS, CSIC).

The GVA-ThinKInAzul Project, with funding of 10 million euros, is the first of the eight thematic areas of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Programme to be launched in the Valencian Community. We are therefore pioneers in the implementation of the programmes promoted by the MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION with funds from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRM) within the framework of the NextGenerationEU initiative.

The GVA-ThinInAzul will coordinate throughout the development of the project (2022-2025) with the programmes developed by the Autonomous Regions of Cantabria, Galicia, Andalusia, Murcia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands. The total funding of the Programme at national level is 53 million euros for the implementation of activities in three thematic lines:

• Marine and Coastal Environment Monitoring
• Sustainable, intelligent and precision aquaculture
• Blue Economy-Citizen Science

The GVA-ThinkInAzul has planned more than 100 tasks in the three lines of action, with the ultimate goal of promoting the conservation of the marine and coastal environment, and a sustainable aquaculture production that gives way to the last pending industrial revolution, that of the blue economy.

GVA-ThinInAzul has the participation of 39 research groups belonging to the Polytechnic University of Valencia (13), University of Alicante (8), CSIC (8), University of Valencia (4), Miguel Hernández University of Alicante (3), Jaume I University (2) and Catholic University of Valencia (1), all of them initially framed in one of the seven work packages in which the project has been organised: Environmental monitoring, Diversification and reproduction, Nutrition and welfare, Health, Food quality and safety, Aquaculture and environment interaction, and Blue economy and citizen science.

The Consortium thus constituted, in the image and likeness of a large EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM, has the participation of more than 300 researchers with very different and complementary capacities, which allows for a holistic approach to the current state of climate emergency, especially serious in the Mediterranean Area.

The solutions provided must have a high TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETENCE and contribute to mitigate the effects of devastating atmospheric phenomena on the marine and coastal environment and farms under cultivation, while promoting automation, robotisation and digitalisation of aquaculture production as a source of highly traceable seafood products with high nutritional value for human consumption, produced under strict control of animal health and welfare, and with a low environmental impact in accordance with the principles of the circular economy.

The expected MILESTONES at the end of the project include the creation of SUCCESSFUL CONSORTIES with the participation of companies to address the environmental and sustainable food production challenges of the 2030 agenda, an updated catalogue of RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES IN MARINE SCIENCES for implementation in technical and human resources, the adequacy of networking of existing OMIC, TECHNOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL PLATFORMS in Marine Sciences in the Valencian Community, as well as the improvement of SOCIETY’S PERCEPTION of aquaculture and of the benefits of the conservation of the marine environment, together with the creation of an INNOVATION AND TRANSFER UNIT that will be a real driving force of the Blue Economy in the Valencian Community, with a marine heritage of unquestionable value and national leader in marine aquaculture fish production.

Therefore, ThinkInAzul aims to contribute in a decisive way to promote changes in food production and consumption models, and thus initiate in a decisive way the green and digital transition of aquaculture production and modelling of production systems and the natural environment through artificial intelligence approaches with learning capacity in a scenario of global change with scarcity of energy resources, food, nitrogen fertilizers, etc..

In short, we want to advance in the knowledge of the INTERACTIONS OF THE ENVIRONMENT WITH FARMED ANIMALS AND THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT in order to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic activity and climate change on production systems and the marine and coastal ecosystem, among others.

See recording in  streaming of the event

Source: iats.csic.es