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Cluster2Cluster

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Published on Wednesday, 31 May 2023 15:15

In Venice on June 6^th the event is organized in the framework of the CLASS 4.0 Interreg Italy Croatia project “Cluster for dAta-driven Solutions in the Sea Economy 4.0” and is designed to gather relevant clusters in the Adriatic Sea connected to blue economy and to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and to work together for contributing on a Single Adriatic Innovation Ecosystem (afternoon workshop) in collaboration with project partners and other relevant players on the territory. The core topic of the day will be the role of the clusters and their potential to stimulate effective and concrete cooperation in the innovation chain.
 
CLASS 4.0 is a project targeting the competitiveness and the innovation capacity of the SMEs in the Adriatic Sea through the valorisation of the opportunities given by the Data driven solutions in the circular and sea economy. The project partnership involves T2i (coordinator), Unioncamere Veneto, Maritime Technology Cluster FVG, INFORMEST, University of Trieste, University of Rijeka and Istrian Development Agency IDA
 
Please come and join us and register at this link:
https://www.marefvg.it/it/evento/class-4-0-cluster2cluster-event/
 

InnovaMare Final Conference, towards inclusive responses to Adriatic ecosystem crises

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Published on Thursday, 11 May 2023 13:18

Italian and Croatian partners present in Šibenik the main achievements of cross-border cooperation: focus on technological
innovations and lifelong training to boost the Blue Economy

[Šibenik, May 8, 2023] – Innovative marine technologies developed and increased their effectiveness through a consolidated know-how sharing model. This is one of the most value-adding results achieved by Croatia and Italy in the wake of intensive cooperation for sustainable Blue Economy carried out under the EU strategic project InnovaMare. Partners from both countries will gather again at the Polytechnic of Šibenik (Croatia), on Friday May 12 (from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) for the final event of the project which crosses the finishing line after almost 3 years of common activities.
 
The Conference is organized by the Croatian Chamber of Economy as leading partner of InnovaMare and aims at further engage quadruple-helix stakeholders (public authorities, universities, industry and citizens) in a longterm strategy to boost the Blue Economy in the Adriatic Sea by taking full advantage of the digital and green transition. The centerpiece of the day will be the presentation of results achieved by InnovaMare, with a special focus on the Digital Innovation Hub (DIH), a newly created transnational hub where researchers will keep developing innovative marine and submarine technologies to fight the Adriatic pollution. “InnovaMare's DIH – said InnovaMare partners - aims to become a critical space for technology transfer supported in part by strengthening cooperation between the world of scientific research, public agencies and the private sector at cross-border and transnational levels, a concrete opportunity to acquire new knowledge and develop highly innovative projects in different sectors of the Blue Economy”.
 
After the welcoming speeches given by Frane Urem, Polytechnic’s Vice Dean, and by the County Prefect, Marko Jelic, the opening of the conference will include speeches from the Croatian Chamber of Economy Mr. Tomislav Radoš, Vice President, Managing authority of Interreg Italia-Croatia, Hrvoje Grancarić and from Šime Erlić Minister, Croatian Ministry of regional development and EU funding.
 
Video demonstrations of DIH InnovaMare will introduce a key panel discussion on “Opportunities and challenges in development of innovation ecosystem for digital and green transformation of blue economy”, coordinated by Mateo Ivanac, InnovaMare project manager, involving all relevant players such as representatives from R&D, private, public and financial sectors.  
 
During the final conference students who previously attended the InnovaMare Academy, the InnovaMare Academy is a five-day educational workshop on topics related to digital and green transformation of the blue economy and the application of marine technologies with focus on robotics and sensors started on May 8 in Šibenik, will be also awarded their studies certificates. The InnovaMare Academy is the culmination of the strategic project and is composed by 5 educational workshops in English for a total duration of 20 hours hold by renowned lecturers.
 
The ceremony will be followed, in the afternoon, by practical demonstrations of newly developed technological innovations and by visits to the Living Lab Adriatic Sea pilots sites like those of Martinska and Minerska, in the Šibenik surronding area. The Final conference program is available on the link.
 
 
 
 
InnovaMare Projectaims at establishing a cross-border innovation ecosystem model in the sector of underwater robotics to monitor and prevent Adriatic Sea pollution. The project InnovaMare as a part of Interreg Italy-Croatia CBC Programme 2014 – 2020 is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and is led by the Croatian Chamber of Economy and implemented by 13 partners from both countries including universities, maritime institutes, business support institutions, SMEs, regional and local public bodies.
 
Further information on www.italy-croatia.eu/innovamare
 
 
 

Obituary – Associate Professor Željko Svedružić

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Published on Monday, 24 April 2023 14:50

Dr Željko Svedružić, associate professor at the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, passed away unexpectedly on the 20th April 2023.
We at the Department of Biotechnology knew him as a scientist, a colleague, a teacher and a mentor, and his passing has left a void in many of us. Underlying his apparently child-like naivety and occasionally provocative approach to his colleagues, were his strong ethical principles that guided him in both his work and private lives.
He was defined by his unique and quirky personality, his enthusiasm for science and his openness to everyone, because as he used to say jokingly: I am Svedružić (which loosely translates as “all friend”) and I like to socialise with everyone. Now, though, there will be no more socialising, but our memories of the good and unique moments we spent with Željko will remain. He loved sports and was actively involved in them, and he was most proud of his butterfly swimming stroke. He left each of us who knew him with a series of anecdotes that we will remember and, one day, after we have accepted his departure, we will recount them with joy and fond memories.
Željko was born on 16^th March 1969 in Osijek. He completed his graduate studies in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Zagreb, and continued his doctoral studies at the Oklahoma State University, where he defended his doctorate in Enzymology and Enzyme Kinetics in 1998. He then undertook postdoctoral training at the University of Santa Barbara in California, Duke University in North Carolina, Washington State University in Washington, and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
After returning to Croatia in 2010, he was employed in the Medical Biochemistry laboratory of the Rab Psychiatric Hospital. Since summer 2013, he has been working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, where he led several undergraduate and masters courses, acted as mentor to many successful research students, and was extremely active in the popularisation of science. In 2022 he was promoted to the status of Associate Professor. His research at the Department of Biotechnology focused on the structure, function and design of biomedically active molecules using in silico approaches.
Rest in peace, dear Željko.


By: Assoc. Prof. Rozi Andretic Waldowski

InnovaMare, last stop of the roadshow on blue technologies in Bari

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Published on Friday, 10 March 2023 09:11

The dream of making the Adriatic a more sustainable sea can become true if Italy and Croatia stay in the groove traced by InnovaMare, the EU strategic project for cross-border cooperation which is close to its endpoint after more than two years of activities. This is the hope of the partners from the two countries who will meet again in Bari to showcase the main results reached out in the framework of InnovaMare: newly developped technologies and effective research methodologies for the Blue Economy sector.
The final leg of the roadshowwhich has involved Dubrovnik, Venice and Rijeka in recent months, is organized by ARTI, Regional Agency for Technology and Innovation of Puglia, and will include two days of workshops, demonstration activities and visits to some regional realities of excellence. The event, ARTI said, will mainly focus on the promotion of networking around the new-born Digital Innovation Hub and on open sea demonstrations of the technologies created for marine safeguards.
 
On March 22, from 9. 00 a.m. at the Bari University Sports Center, will be held a thematic workshop on “Cooperation, Blue technologies and smart solutions for a soustainable Adriatic Sea”. It will be followed by hands-on demos of two robotic solutions developed by CNR-National Research Council and University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as partners of the project. Tests will involve, in particular, SWAMP, an Autonomous Surface Vehicle (Asv) i.e. the lightweight mini-catamaran for sea monitoring in ports and river basins, and the Smart Multifunctional Buoy, a robot for measuring, managing and storing data recorded at sea. These two different robotic solutions were designed to work in an integrated way to maximize results in the fight against maritime pollution. They will be both tested,  for their first time in the Apulian sea, to show to the public how they can effectively work together. Researchers point out that "successuful tests carried out during the project showcased these systems are effective both in cooperative scenarios and in particularly risky environments", such as lagoon waters and polluted waterways.
 
On March 23, partners and project’s stakeholders will visit the Laboratory of Coastal Engineering (LIC) of the Polytechnic University of Bari, a national excellence for its state-of-the-art instrumentation applied to coastal dynamics modelling and wave motion detection. They will then continue the tour to the Monopoli-based company AS Labruna, a leading Italian manufacturer of "green," electric and hybrid-powered engines for the marine industry.
 
Submarine robotics will play a strategic role in protecting the seas, both because of its low cost and because it can operate effectively. Developing innovation for the Blue Economy by consolidating the virtuous ecosystem created with InnovaMare is in fact the mission of the Digital Innovation Hub (DIH), the hub for the development of submarine robotics created last February by signing a Memorandum of Understanding, another concrete confirmation of effective cooperation for the sustainability of thesea.

More: https://mairos.org/news/fourth-innovamare-roadshow-bari-22-23-march-2023/ 

Call for Applications - Biotechnology for the Life Sciences International graduate/masters research program 2023/2024.

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Published on Tuesday, 10 January 2023 10:05

The Department of Biotechnology is happy to announce that applications are now open for students wishing to begin the graduate/research program "Biotechnology for the Life Sciences" in October 2023. Biotechnology for the Life Sciences is a research focussed program, taught entirely in English, aimed at students aiming to pursue a career in life sciences research, either in academia or industry. Notably, the first year includes two 8-week long research apprenticeships in research laboratories, while the entire second year is dedicated to an in depth original research project.

Interested students should download and complete the application form and submit it to us, along with the other documents requested in it, to us by email life.sci@biotech.uniri.hr by 31st March 2023. This call is open to students from any country, and of any nationality. More information can be found in the Call for Applications. Please feel free to email us if you have any questions. The tuition fees for the course are €4500 per year, and apply to applicants of all nationalities.

Depending on applicant numbers, a second call may be issued with a deadline of July 2023, however this second call will only be applicable for students that do not need a visa to travel to the Republic of Croatia (such as EU citizens).