- Today the ordinary meeting of the Board of Trustees of Fundación Valenciaport was held, at which the action plan and budgets for the 2025 financial year were approved.
- During the second half of the year Fundación Valenciaport has obtained approval to develop 10 new projects, which will be funded by the Horizon Europe, CEF and AVI programs
Valencia, November 27th, 2024. – Fundación Valenciaport has held this morning the ordinary meeting of its board of trustees to approve the action plan and budgets for the year 2025, amounting the level of planned activity to 8,200,000 euros.
In the director’s report, Antonio Torregrosa has expressed his satisfaction with the excellent results obtained by the entity in the various calls for both European and national innovation programs, having participated during 2024 in a total of 49 innovation projects. Specifically, these are five projects of the Horizon 2020 program, twenty-four of the Horizon Europe program, six CEF projects, three EUROMED projects, two Erasmus + projects, two projects funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI), three EMFAF (European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund); two Ports 4.0 projects; one project funded by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, and one funded by the Generalitat Valenciana.
Torregrosa also explained to the members of the Board of Trustees the objectives of the 10 projects approved in the second half of the year, five of them funded by the Horizon Europe program: TWINSHIP, HARPOONERS, FLEETfor55, COP-PILOT and TRUSTEE; four projects funded by the CEF program: OPS VALENCIAPORT, TRAMA, 5G VALENCIAPORT and SEMAS; and one project funded by the AVI: INNOAGENT FV.
The director also reported on the three innovation projects successfully closed during 2024: Connecting Sagunto, Ealing and Perseo. Thanks to these initiatives, the railway connectivity of the Port of Sagunto has been improved, the electrical network of the Port of Valencia has been prepared for the supply of electricity to ships and the measurement of ship emissions in real time during their operations in the Port of Valencia has been facilitated.
In the section of services to the cluster, the director has presented the first results of IMARPORT, the new service of promotion and support to the innovation to the companies of the cluster in which the participation in projects of R&D, innovation and the request of financing for projects of infrastructures, digitalization and decarbonization of the logistic port sector is facilitated. According to the director of the entity the amount of aid approved thanks to IMARPORT for companies in the cluster between January and September 2024 has amounted to 62.4 million euros.
In terms of open innovation, Torregrosa highlighted the resounding success of the 2nd edition of the PEIC (Port Entrepreneurship International Congress), an event organized by Opentop with the support of the APV and the GVA, and held on October 23 in the framework of the Valencia Digital Summit, with the participation of 32 international experts as speakers. During the PEIC, the incorporation of the Argentine hub SmartportLab to the network of port innovation hubs PIN – Port Innovators Network, of which Opentop is a founding member, was announced. On the other hand, the director of the entity has highlighted the good progress of the Valenciaport Hackathon, whose IV edition was held between 5 and 7 July with 45 participants who proposed solutions to the challenges posed by Bergé, VTE and APV with the IDF Association.
With regard to the field of cooperation, Torregrosa has informed the members of the Board of Trustees of the training and international cooperation projects being developed in Brazil and Colombia. In addition, Torregrosa has highlighted the port immersion course, also taught in Barranquilla (Colombia) and framed in the European project VETLOGICC, and the visit to the Port of Valencia of the Minister of Ports and Airports of Brazil. During the visit, he signed a framework agreement of collaboration with Fundación Valenciaport with the main objective of continuing to teach in Brazil the Master in Logistics and Port Management, a program currently celebrating its 4th edition with a remarkable success of participation.
Another of the points highlighted by the director was the excellent result of the 2nd edition of the annual congress of Alianza Net-Zero MAR , organized by Fundación Valenciaport in its role as technical secretariat and held last October in A Coruña. This event, which was attended by 49 speakers and 150 representatives of companies and administrations committed to the decarbonization of maritime transport, dealt with topics of great interest to the sector such as electricity supply to ships from port, renewable energies in ports and maritime environment and decarbonization of ships, ports and terminals.
Also, in relation to events in which it has participated, the director highlighted its recent participation in the COP29, held in Azerbaijan, and in which he gave a presentation at a forum focused on the development of innovation, training and cooperation initiatives in the fight against climate change in the port sector, organized by the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport on behalf of the Arab League.
Regarding the training area, the director informed the board of the success of the port immersion course in which 107 vocational training students from Ausiàs March, El Grao, Mislata and Pere Boïl high schools were trained in international trade processes and import/export operations. He also informed them of the launching of the 33rd edition of the Master in Port Management and Intermodal Transport and the 11th edition of the customs representative course. Finally, he informed the attendees about the different seminars organized in collaboration with Asecam, ICEX and Soivre, as well as the recent renewal of the ISO 9001:2015 quality seal by the entity’s training department.
