The Port of Gandia hosted the presentation of the new Blue Economy Laboratory, an initiative driven by the Valenciaport Foundation and the Gandia Campus of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), in collaboration with the Port Authority of Valencia (APV), within the framework of the European project TREASURE, funded by the Interreg Euro-MED programme.
The project aims to improve the environmental quality of port areas in the Mediterranean, particularly through the prevention and reduction of water and sediment pollution.
The Blue Economy Laboratory is conceived as a space to test, validate, and develop innovative solutions in a real port environment, with a special focus on technologies aimed at improving and restoring water quality. As an open and collaborative experimental environment, it will connect tech companies, startups, and scaleups with researchers, port managers, and public administrations, facilitating tests and the analysis of their environmental impact. To this end, the laboratory will leverage the infrastructure and capabilities available at the Port of Gandia and the UPV, including facilities and equipment dedicated to water quality monitoring and analysis.
The management and coordination of the laboratory will be handled by Opentop, Valenciaport’s open innovation hub, which will be responsible for channeling requests from interested companies and entities, as well as identifying innovative solutions suitable for testing. The Valenciaport Foundation will handle the monitoring and evaluation of the tests, while the Gandia Campus will contribute its scientific-technical expertise, primarily through the Research Institute for Integrated Coastal Zone Management (IGIC). For its part, the Port Authority of Valencia will participate through its institutional role and as manager of the Port of Gandia, facilitating the execution of actions within the port environment.
The launch event included speeches by Elena Moncho, Councilor for Economy, Business and Employment, and Councilor for Commerce, Markets and Consumption of the Gandia City Council; Antonio Torregrosa, General Director of the Valenciaport Foundation; Juan Manuel Díez, Head of Innovation at the APV; and Vicenç Almenar, Director of the Gandia Campus of the UPV. The event also served to present the initial working lines and outcomes linked to this collaboration.
Following the introduction to the TREASURE project and the presentation of the laboratory itself, MarineRob, Mediterranean Algae, and Miguel Rodilla, an expert from the UPV’s Gandia Campus, presented various pilot projects aimed at improving water quality. They addressed key issues such as the impact of ship scrubbers on water, wastewater treatment using algae, and the restoration of sublittoral rocky benthos.
The gathering concluded with a visit to the Gandia Campus sheds at the Port of Gandia and to a pilot water treatment project, reinforcing the laboratory’s role as a testbed for practical Blue Economy solutions.
