Blue Growth takes part in the ‘European Maritime Day in My Country’ with a hybrid event
“Maritime projects and perspectives in Montenegro in the context of Blue Growth”
The Interreg MED Blue Growth Horizontal Project, through its partner, University of Montenegro, Institute of Marine Biology (UoM) participate in the “European Maritime Day in my Country”. UoM organized a hybrid event entitled: “Maritime projects and perspectives in Montenegro in the context of Blue Growth”.
This hybrid event is addressed to the public sector (Ministries, Local and Regional Authorities), as well as to stakeholders from several blue sectors, i.e., fishing & aquaculture, biotechnology, tourism, maritime surveillance, ports, etc.
The event was attended by 26 participants.
Montenegrin partners from the Interreg MED Blue Growth Community presented their main goals and their projects’ achieved results.
The introductory part was addressed by Dr. Aleksandar Joksimovic, director of the Institute of Marine Biology, who welcomed the participants and expressed great satisfaction that the Institute through the Blue Growth Community project, and this event, marks the European Maritime Day in Montenegro and Ocean Day. He emphasized that in addition to the transfer and capitalization of Blue growth results, IMB (Institute of Marine Biology) has a very important role in educating about the importance and protection of the marine environment. Also, introductory part was addressed by the national contact person Ms. Borka Lješkovi, she pointed out important role of modular projects as well as the role of horizontal projects in Interreg MED program. On behalf of the Institute of Marine Biology and the Blue Growth Community project, the main activities and results of the project were presented by Dr. Branka Pestorić. In the first session of the event, modular projects from the Blue Growth sector that have their partners in Montenegro were presented. Main activities and the results so far of Psamides' project were presented by Bojana Tošić from the Institute of Modern Technologies, then Marija Raspopović from the Chamber of Commerce of Montenegro presented the BLUEFasma project. In the field of governance projects, the MED OSMoSiS project was presented by Zerina Kardović from the Ministry of Capital Investments and the B-Blue project, which was presented by Radivoje Drobnjak from the Science and Technology Park of Montenegro. At the end of the first session, conclusions on the topics of the Interreg MED program in the Blue growth sector were presented by Borka Lješković, national contact person. She emphasized the importance of these projects because we are witnessing economic growth in the Mediterranean and thus an increase in the threat to the Mediterranean Marine Ecosystem. She believes that the projects are very well placed in terms of synergy and that we need, now, to implement integration of results and tools. The most important thing is networking and linking the results in order to achieve the coherence of policies because the problems we have are socially indivisible. Through the presented projects, we can see the importance of introducing the practice of circular economy, introduction of biotechnology, exchange of tools such as control and monitoring systems, etc. and this event is extremely useful in this regard. Exchange - Synergy - Cooperation within Mediterranean has to be our guide.
In the second session, Dr Mirko Djurovic facilitate. He thanked everyone who accepted participation in today's session and pointed out that our goal is to gather more partners from Montenegro, see what is being done on the topic of Blue Growth in Montenegro, „I consider that this is networking among us in Montenegro and believes that new ideas and project applications can be born from this meeting and it is certainly a significant contribution to building the Blue Growth Community“.
Projects from the Interreg IPA CBC program and the Bilateral project on maritime issues were also presented, in order to exchange tools and best practices produced by their consortiums.
During the presentation of the project "Food4Health" from the trilateral IPA CBC program (Albania-Italy-Montenegro), Dr. Milica Mandić from the Institute of Marine Biology emphasized the importance of suporting small and medium enterprises and linking science with the economy sector. Throughout „Food4Health“ the goal is to keep marine aquaculture at a stable level, ie that production does not harm the health of the environment, and to find a balance in order to preserve water resources. There is an integrated aquaculture that involves the cultivation of organisms of distinct trophic levels, which reduces side effects and improves the state of the environment. "
Dr. Spiro Ivosevic, through the presentation of the EUREKA PROCHA-SMA project, emphasized the importance of shape memory alloys and their wide application on transport and passenger vessels, submarines as well as their application on oil platforms.
This event was a good opportunity to strengthen contacts within the country regarding the Blue Growth sector and to find the right way in order to capitalize the produced tools, aiming to a sustainable Blue growth in the Mediterranean area.
The hybrid event aimed to:
- Strengthen cooperation within the blue growth sector in the country;
- Get acquainted with activities on the topic of blue growth within the Interreg MED program, Interreg IPA CBC program and bilateral programs on the topic of maritime affairs;
- Disseminate knowledge among stakeholders about various aspects of blue growth, developed tools and their advantages in further development;
- Raising awareness of the importance of sustainable development, especially regarding Blue Growth and encouraging the responsible behavior of individuals;
- Disseminate the activities and outcomes of the Blue Growth Community projects.
The hybrid event was held both online and in physical presence (at the Institute of Marine Biology, University of Montenegro), on the 8th June 2021, coinciding with the World Oceans Day. This event is one of the 236 events that are organized throughout Europe, but also the only one that is organized in Montenegro, which makes it unique.