SUWANU KICK-OFF MEETING

BIOAZUL, as general coordinator, organized the Kick-off meeting of the SuWaNu project “Sustainable Water Treatment and Nutrient reuse options” in Málaga (Spain) on the 17th-18th of July, 2013. 30 delegates of 19 organisations from five European countries: Germany, Spain, Greece, Malta and Bulgaria, attended the meeting.

SuWaNu is a Coordination Action which aims to develop and promote transnational cooperation between the five research-driven, clusters involving universities, regional authorities, research centers, technology developers, enterprises, farmers, and farmer´s associations related to wastewater treatment and nutrient reuse in agriculture. Such service will provide and facilitate exchange of know-how on alternatives for water and nutrient resources for all project members, create business opportunities in the area of focus and further expand support to stakeholders from countries outside the consortium, concurrently providing solutions to the problems regarding these issues that Europe is faced with.

During the meeting the project partners had the opportunity to engage the consortium members, to present the project and introduce the main aspects of the work. Besides, the five clusters participated in a work session in order to organize the workplan of the first six months. During this period the main objective will be to get an insight view of all regional clusters state of play. The analysis covers the identification of relevant issues such as the existing European, international and regional related policies, plans, activities and regional key actors. A research innovation and market oriented SWOT analysis will be executed in order to get indicators for the regions capacity to produce, transfer and use knowledge.