Kickoff for the A3MAtlantic Project

Members of the European project A3MAtlantic, including the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), have held a meeting marking the official start of this initiative included in the InterregMAC program.

A3MAtlantic’s main objective is to promote innovation and internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Mid-Atlantic regions operating in the blue economy sector, strengthening their competitiveness and sustainable growth through pilot actions and joint solutions promoted by public administrations and services, research centers, companies, and civil society.

The initiative, endowed with 3 million euros, brings together 19 entities from the Canary Islands, Madeira, Azores, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. The latter two have premiered their participation in the project coinciding with its kickoff meeting.


PLOCAN plays a relevant role in this project, involved in promoting innovation and competitiveness in the blue economy through collaboration between the various agents involved in it.

According to PLOCAN’s director, José Joaquín Hernández Brito, “the blue economy in the Macaronesian region is atomized in silos and on islands. It is necessary to create a fluid space where knowledge and technology can have a much larger market and at the same time where companies can find a sufficient critical mass business volume.”

Specifically, PLOCAN’s activities in the A3MAtlantic project fall under specific objective 2, which consists of support and accompaniment in innovation for SMEs in the Blue Economy and support for SMEs in diversification and new emerging sectors.

In this way, PLOCAN, as a research and technological development infrastructure, acts as a catalyst for innovative and collaborative projects, fostering synergies, promoting the development of SMEs in marine-maritime sectors of the Blue Economy, and complying with the Sustainable Development Goals through sustainable technologies and solutions.

Coinciding with the launch of the A3MAtlantic project, the partners, who also integrate the Marine-Maritime Alliance of Macaronesia (A3M), have held the third assembly of this body, in which the transfer of its presidency has taken place, which until now was held by the Azores and has passed to Madeira.


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