It was a great honour for Mara-Mediterra to be invited to give a presentation during the ‘PRIMA projects – successful stories’ during the PRIMA Collaborate Event organized by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST). The event, which aimed at uniting researchers in Malta for innovation, ran over two days, i.e. from 8 to 9 February 2024. A copy of the presentations provided during this session can be accessed from this link.
On the first day, an animated Panel Discussion took place on the theme Synergies to Mediterranean Priorities for Research and Innovation. The panel was chaired by Sonya Sammut, Director of Food Systems within the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights in Malta (seated on the left). She was joined by panellists (to her right) Maria Maia, Science and Policy Officer of the Department for International Relations within the Foundation for Science and Technology in Portugal, and the 5+5 Dialogue Delegate for Science and Portuguese Presidency Secretariat; Marco Orlando, Project Officer within the Thematic Area Water Management of the PRIMA Foundation, and MCST representatives Omar Cutajar, Senior Director of the Strategy, Research and Technical Affairs unit, and Martin Vieira, National Contact Point for European Innovation Council, European Innovation Ecosystems and European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Professor Luciano Mule Stagno, Director at the Institute for Sustainable Energy of the University of Malta and Alessio Bucaioni, Co-founder and CEO of WES Trade Ltd. completed the panel.
In her intervention during the panel discussion, Anna Spiteri, Managing Director of IRMCo, thanked Prof. Mohamed El Shinawi, PRIMA Foundation Co-chair and Marco Orlando, for ‘bringing a breadth of fresh air’ to the array of currently available EU funded research and innovation opportunities. In her view, this was amply demonstrated by the scope and expected outcomes of the PRIMA Calls, by being focused on concrete, real challenges of a social, economic and environmental nature, particularly among rural communities in the Mediterranean.
During the second day, Mara-Mediterra Project Officer, Marco Orlando, ran a marathon of presentations in a highly efficient and interactive manner. Following on an overview of the PRIMA 2024 Calls, Marco went through the submission and evaluation-of-proposals process and also shared recommendations and tips for a successful proposal submission.
These initial presentations were followed by the ‘PRIMA projects – successful stories’ session, in which Dirk De Ketelaere, Senior Researcher at IRMCo, had been invited to provide his own insights why Mara-Mediterra had been selected for funding following the PRIMA 2022 Call. Dirk foremost pointed to how IRMCo’s adoption of the logical framework approach led to an uninterrupted involvement of the environmental research company in international, EU funded research projects since it was set up in 1994. This approach guides a proposal writer how to arrive at measurable objectives, tied to quantified key performance indicators. While this permits to measure progress during the project implementation phase, the same set of objectives are linked in Mara-Mediterra to quantified expected outcomes with duly substantiated sources of verification. As to the aspect of what makes for good project management practice, Dirk aptly informed the participants that Mara-Mediterra’s project coordinator, Dr. Vasileios Takavakoglou, and project manager, Eleanna Pana, lead the partnership by considering that project coordination is foremost about motivating everyone to work together to the best of our abilities and expertise, and whereby everything is discussed in an open, constructive manner among all partners.
Still, it was also an honour for Dirk to introduce his research colleagues in Turkey, Associate Prof. Dr. Cem Polat Çetinkaya (pictured on the right), and Prof. Dr. Hülya Boyacıoğlu (pictured on the left) from the Dokuz Eylul University Industrial Application and Research Center (DEU DESUM) in Izmir, who joined the PRIMA Collaborate Event. Their presence was facilitated by their participation also in the Second Community of Practice Workshop in Malta in the framework of the MCST-TUBITAK funded UNIMED project.
The event was concluded with a highly interactive session in which the participants were split in three groups, and tasked to come up with a concept note for a proposal submission to the respective PRIMA 2024 Calls. While Dirk joined the group (pictured on the left, below) that brainstormed a proposal entitled ‘Towards increased resilience in irrigated agriculture in the Mediterranean Region’, with the acronym IRRIMED, the team joined by Anna conjured up a novel agroforestry practice by introducing Maltese goats in forested areas where the coats would be able to feast on pines and other fruits from the woodland (pictured on the right, below).
To the applause of all the participants, Anna thanked Annalisa Cartabia (pictured on the right, standing) and her colleagues from the Malta Council for Science and Technology for a well-attended and well-organized event.
