Strengthening the link with ports
On Tuesday 29th of June 2021, EU-CONEXUS Public and Corporate Relation Unit organised a first virtual roundtable on relations of Universities with ports: status, best practices and further development
This virtual roundtable gathered 44 participants from the 9 EU-CONEXUS countries.
Among participants, 8 ports from 6 different countries were present: Cyprus Port Authority (Cyprus), Klaipeda State Seaport Authority (Lithuania), Port Chef de Baie – La Rochelle (fishing port, France), National Company Maritime Ports Administration Constanta (Romania), Port Authority of Valencia (Spain), Port of Zadar Authority (Croatia), Port de plaisance – La Rochelle (marina port, France), Port Atlantique La Rochelle (trading port, France). 7 Universities have participated to this event : La Rochelle Université (France), Agricultural University of Athens (Greece), Frederick University (Cyprus), Universidad Catolica de Valencia (Spain), Technical University of Civil Ingeneering (Romania), Klaipeda University (Lithuania), University of Zadar (Croatia).
EU-CONEXUS Researchers and maritime clusters also attended this meeting.
The moderator of the event was Mr. Andrius Sutnikas, Head manager of Lithuanian Maritime Cluster and project manager of Klaipeda science and technology park
The President of the alliance, Jean-Marc Ogier and the Executive Director of EU-CONEXUS, Isabella Baer-Eiselt welcomed the participants strengthening the aim of EU-CONEXUS to foster interactions between socio-economic actors located in coastal areas and universities in order to see how to anticipate future jobs and needed skills, how to create a sustainable world for the future of our European communities, and how to boost European competitiveness.
Ports representatives of the Atlantic Port of La Rochelle (France), Klaipeda seaport authority (Lithuania), Valencia Port Authority (Spain), Port of Zadar Authority (Croatia) and Port of Constanța (Romania) have presented their ports, activities and main challenges for the future. Most of common challenges were linked to the European Green Deal or how to become more connected ports, efficient ports and responsible ports.
Ports showed also interest in the research portal under development in the alliance to better know the topics on which EU-CONEXUS researchers are working on. Moreover, they are interested in meeting each other to exchange good practices and to discuss specific topics. EU-CONEXUS will work with them in order to better understand their challenges and identify the possible research collaboration among the alliance.
In order to go further in the collaboration, ports will also be invited for the Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability Days which will take place from 8th to 12th November 2021 in La Rochelle (France).
EU-CONEXUS also needs to identify in more details Ports’ challenges and their main interest in University activities. In order to do so, we invite ports to fill in this questionnaire before the 01/09/2021.
