What’s new in June 2022
June comes to an end with key events for the agri-food sector such as Ecowine, Salimat Abanca, Organic Food Iberia & Eco Living Iberia or the celebration of the International Day of Women in Engineering.
June was also a key month for our Innovation Consultancy team with the completion of the CIEN Cavawinner project and the promotion of international R&D&I cooperation projects.
Key events in the agri-food sector in June
II ECOWINE SYMPOSIUM
National congress to share and debate technical advances on organic vine cultivation and its role as a mitigator of climate change as a carbon sink, to bring the sector closer to the importance of ecosystem services, to link organic production with the quality of wine, local development and culture, and finally, to bring the production sector closer to and orientate it towards organic production.
SALIMAT ABANCA 2022, Atlantic Food Show
A meeting that combines the presence of large-scale distribution with that of quality, artisan, gourmet, organic and innovative product companies to showcase the keys to achieving effective interaction between supply and demand in the food and gastronomy sector.
ORGANIC FOOD IBERIA & ECO LIVING IBERIA
A key event for professional organic production in Europe, where the new trends in the sector are presented, not only in the field of food, wine and beverages, but also the latest in health and wellness, beauty, skin care, textiles, home and lifestyle from all regions of Spain and Portugal.
VINIS TERRAE
Quality Galician Wine and Spirits Show to position the wineries and producers of spirits and liqueurs belonging to the different designations of origin of Galicia in the Spanish and international market.
DIGITAL ENTERPRISE SHOW 2022
Annual fair to promote the digitalisation of companies and administrations to increase their competitiveness and boost economic and social development.
NUTRACEUTICALS EUROPE – SUMMIT & EXPO
A benchmark professional meeting in southern Europe in the field of functional ingredients, novel foods and end products, aimed at producers, distributors and customers.
Successful completion of the Cavawinner R&D project
The CIEN project funded by the CDTI, Cavawinner, has come to an end after four years of work with significant results that have enabled the positioning of Spanish cava compared to other international sparkling wines thanks to the implementation of new technologies such as vision and Artificial Intelligence.
During its execution, Cavawinner has counted on our participation as the project’s technical office and innovation communication consultant. This interesting project joins four other CIEN projects managed by our experts in R&D&I funding: VINYSOST, GLOBALVITI, CORK2WINE and LOWPHWINE. All of them specialised in the wine sector, with a total mobilisation of public funds of close to 23 million euros.
Thanks to the results of this innovative initiative, which was created with the aim of positioning Spanish cava compared to other international sparkling wines, many wineries in the sector will be able to implement changes aimed at producing a higher quality cava and improving their production process. In addition, these achievements will lead to a considerable improvement in the quality control and food safety of cava.
Cavawinner has been executed with a global budget of 6.1 million euros and has received financial support from the CIEN programme of CDTI, an initiative that supports large R&D initiatives developed collaboratively by business groups.
The role of women in engineering
On 23 June we celebrated International Women in Engineering Day, proclaimed by the Women’s Engineering Society in 2014. We joined this celebration to highlight the contribution and work of four of our female colleagues who, being engineers, occupy management and relevant positions within our Engineering and Innovation Consultancy.
Engineering, and therefore the vocation to innovate, is essential for the sustainable development of modern society. In a developed world in which new technologies are acquiring a major role, the work of engineers in their implementation is essential in order to maintain and improve the quality of life of our society.
Despite the recognised value of this discipline, it is a sector that has traditionally had a greater male presence. However, this situation has been changing in recent years so that, according to Eurostat data for the year 2020, 49.5% of people working in engineering and science in Spain are women, a figure that represents an increase of 4.5 points since 2010, when it stood at 45%.
We have four female engineers in relevant positions in our company. Not only in both departments, but also in key corporate positions for the proper functioning of our overall structure. They are Encarnación de los Reyes, Director of Corporate Services, Elena Abad, Director of Innovation Consultancy, Nuria López, Coordinator of the Technical Engineering Office and Coral Gutiérrez del Anillo, Head of National Projects and Taxation in the Innovation Consultancy Department.
The value of R&D&I in international cooperation
Access to public funding for the execution of R&D&I projects has many advantages for the entities that benefit from them. We are not only talking about the financial support for the project itself, but also the capacity it gives it to achieve greater projection and scope.
This aspect is even more accentuated when we talk about collaborative projects and, even more so, if we are dealing with an international R&D&I project in which different countries, perspectives and backgrounds come into play, enriching the consortium as a whole.
Our International Project Finance team has more than 10 years of experience in the promotion and management of this type of R&D&I projects. They advise our clients in all the stages of presentation, monitoring and justification of the international project: design of the proposal and the consortium, technical-economic management, administrative management and monitoring and justification.
Our experience covers different types of projects and calls for proposals. Such is the case of COPPEREPLACE, an initiative funded by the Interreg Sudoe Programme with more than 1M€, NOVATERRA, a project funded under Horizon Europe with more than 4.8M€, LAB4SUPPLY and SUSTEMICROP, both financed in the PRIMA-S 2 framework by the State Research Agency with Next Generation EU funds, the BAKE4SAFE project financed in the 4th joint Algeria-Spain call for R&D&I projects 2021 of CDTI and BETTERSOIL, also financed by CDTI through the EUREKA programme.
