The director of the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands, Octavio Llinás, has announced during the commemorative meeting of the 25th anniversary of ESTOC that José Joaquín Hernández Brito (Executive Board Member / CEO of AIR Centre) will fill the position of director of PLOCAN in January 2020.
José Joaquín Hernández Brito holds a first degree in Chemistry by the University of La Laguna (ULL- 1983) and a Diploma Course in Marine Pollution Chemistry by the University of Liverpool. He holds a Ph. D. in Chemistry by the University of La Laguna, 1986. He was a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Marine Sciences of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria since 1983 where he has been a researcher, supervisor of several doctoral Thesis and responsible for over thirty national and international projects. He has held several R&D management positions at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, such as Dean of the Faculty of Marine Science, Director of the Research Results Transfer Office (TTO), Director of the Scientific and Technological Park and research Vice-Rector. He has also held the position of manager of innovation at the Canary Islands Institute of Technology and Director of the Marine Institute of the Canary Islands. From 2009 to 2018, José Joaquín Hernández Brito worked for PLOCAN and he was Science, Technology and Innovation Manager.
His primary motivation is to develop collaboration and sharing knowledge, technology and innovation in the Atlantic area, opening new frontiers in developing untapped marine and maritime opportunities, tacking global problems to create local value.
AIR Centre is an international distributed scientific network to share science and technology responding to the Global Atlantic scale challenges, enhancing the sharing of scientific and technical resources and creating sustainable local value. It foster the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through innovation, capacity building and new sustainable business development using an interdisciplinary and holistic approach. AIR Centre integrates Space, Atmosphere, Ocean, Climate, Energy and Data Science to address the Global Challenges in the Atlantic Ocean, to deliver value, benefits and sustainable development to the marine and coastal ecosystem and people.
The AIR Centre mission is to identify, provide and promote activities, projects and programs to look beyond their internal resources to develop new products, services and financial frameworks in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
During 2019 Portugal, Spain, South Africa, United States, Brasil, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Angola, Norway, Cape Verde, Namibia, Sweden, Senegal and Ghana are participating in the AIR Centre with local offices or/and researchers and common projects.
PLOCAN is the AIR Centre’s node in the Canary Islands, by nomination of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
