Red BEAM Kick-off Meeting: advancing Technological Innovation and the Blue Economy

On January 27, 2025, Red BEAM held its kick-off meeting at PLOCAN, Las Palmas, bringing together the 11 project partners in the consortium. The Red BEAM (Red Bancos de Ensayo del Atlántico Medio) project aims to create a distributed hub of testbeds for developing, testing, and validating emerging and disruptive ocean technologies in the Macaronesian region and West Africa. The Red BEAM project seeks to leverage opportunities from the surrounding oceans by addressing business needs in the region, supporting the Blue Economy, and improving collaboration through strategies for oceanic technology hubs using sustainable practices. By implementing pilot projects in areas such as unmanned maritime navigation, aquaculture, and marine renewable energies, Red BEAM defines workflows and fosters public-private synergies. The project's main activities focus on the development and commercialization of emerging oceanic technologies. Ultimately, Red BEAM's primary goal is to transform the region into a leader in technological innovation within the marine sector. The project’s partners, led by the Consortium for the Design, Construction, Equipment, and Operation of the Canary Islands Oceanic Platform (PLOCAN), also include the AIR Centre; the ADFMA - Association for the Development and Formation of the Sea of the Azores; ARDITI - Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation – Association; Canary Islands Maritime Cluster Association (CMC); Marine Science Technology Centre (CETECIMA); Premium Catamarans SL; University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Vice-Presidency of the Regional Government Regional Fund for Science and Technology; Centre for Enterprise Learning; Sea Institute (Imar), and Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research (ISRA).