These were two of the projects selected in the second Call 2020 of the Knowledge-driven Economy of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Basque Country-Navarra Euroregion. The call, whose budget of €400,000, seeks to select specific projects to generate synergies and complementarities between partners (“from the university to the company”) located in the territories of Nouvelle Aquitaine, the Basque Country and Navarra.
There were 24 applications submitted to the Call, but only 7 were selected. Two of them are related to renewable energies and, interestingly enough, both are linked to the liquid element, water. However, one looks to the sea (blue economy), while the other is focused on inland hydraulic uses. The Renovables project, which is one of those selected, “seeks to foster strategic cooperation between socio-economic stakeholders of the Euroregion to promote the blue economy around the Bay of Biscay”. It is led by the E-Cleder research group at the University of the Basque Country-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, a group which includes Dr. Jesús María Blanco Ilzarbe, the driving force behind the prestigious REM Master’s Degree – Erasmus Mundus Master’s Degree in Renewable Energy in the Marine Environment. The Renovables project is also driven by the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics-BCAM, Alerion Technologies, the company from Gipuzkoa, the Institute of Smart Cities at the Public University of Navarra, the Spanish National Renewable Energy Centre (Cener), Naitec (Automotive and Mechatronics Technology Centre of Navarra), the Trent Chair–Sciences Po Bordeaux (Chaire TRansitions Énergétiques Territoriales, Nouvelle Aquitaine) and the Inria (Numerical technology and science research) and IMB (Institut de Mathématiques de Bordeaux) institutes, both of which are in Nouvelle Aquitaine. The project has a €47,449 grant.
The second project linked to renewable energies and selected in the second Call 2020 of the Knowledge-driven Economy of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Basque Country-Navarra Euroregion is Hidro-TTIPI, which has received €67,287 in funding. Its purpose will be “to prepare an accurate study of the water mills in the territory, along with identifying the 6 most appropriate cases for their recovery or upgrading”. The Goiener S. Coop (Euskadi) and Nafarkoop Energía S.Coop (Navarra) cooperatives and I-Ener SAS initiative for the production of solidarity and citizen energy (Nueva Aquitania) are taking part in this project.
Furthermore, the Erakusbidea project has been awarded €54,410 in the field of sustainable project. The general goal of the project, piloted by Eraikune – Basque Association of Construction Closers (EUS), Association of Timber Businesses of Navarra and Odéys (Nouvelle Aquitaine), is to promote and raise awareness about sustainable building with timber and other natural materials in the Euroregion.
The other four selected projects are in the fields of aerospace-aeronautical advanced manufacturing; agriculture and agri-food industry; health (establishing in the Euroregion of a common and functional biobank of human bile samples); and the defining of a “health care model for older persons that generates value and which meets the real needs and the health results valued by this population group”.
