The 8 June 2023 the Managing Director of ForMare, Lidia Rossi, attended the 8th edition of Seafuture Convention, the hub on the Mediterranean Sea for the Blue Economy. SEAFUTURE is the annual business convention of maritime and dual use technologies, that took place in La Spezia (Italy) on the 5-8 June 2023.
In the frame of the panel organized by the WestMED: “Main Achievements of the WestMED Maritime Clusters Alliance and its members”, ForMare has presented two projects, MARMED and CALLMEBLUE, that are the result of the fruitful collaboration established with Maritime Clusters operating in the Mediterranean Area under the edge of the WestMED Alliance.
MARMED – MARitime cluster Management Education Development, funded under the Erasmus+ Program and started in December 2022, aims at bridging the gap between the existing needs and the current skillset of Maritime Cluster Managers ensuring the re-skilling and up-skilling for an innovative professional profile towards an increased competitiveness of Maritime Clusters in the Mediterranean Area and, overall, the boosting of innovation and sustainable growth in the Blue Economy sector.
CALLMEBLUE – Cluster ALLiance MEd BLUE submitted under the EMFAF, Topic 4 Maritime clusters as an innovative enabler for a Sustainable Blue Economy in the Mediterranean (EMFAF-2023-PIA-FLAGSHIP-4-MED). The project, that gathers together the main representatives of Maritime Clusters operating in the Mediterranean Area aims to set-up and strengthen Maritime Clusters Alliances – particularly targeting southern Mediterranean countries but also allowing to enhance the regional dialogue within the Cluster Mediterranean ecosystem. At this purpose, the project aims to create a strategic vision and transferable models of interregional cooperation and will indeed promote exchange of best practices and knowledge transfer between north and southern Mediterranean area.
The panel has represented an interesting opportunity to raise awareness on the importance of Maritime Clusters and to engage fruitful discussion with the participants, at the presence of representatives of major Institutions at national level – as the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Presidency of the Council of Ministers – Department for Cohesion Policies – and at EU level – as DG Mare, Union for the Mediterranean. The panel was attended also by the representatives of the main European and Mediterranean Maritime Clusters, the European Clusters Alliance and the European Network of Maritime Clusters.
