The workshop wasorganized within the framework of the “From Sea to Solution” Awareness Campaign, implemented under the Interreg Euro-MED Programme project 2B-Blue Project, with the objective of promoting Blue Biotechnology and sustainable aquaculture practices among students, researchers, and academic stakeholders in Albania. The event formed part of a series of workshops planned across several Albanian cities, including Durrës, Shkodër, and Vlorë, aiming to support the development of a Mediterranean Blue Future through awareness, collaboration,
and knowledge exchange.
The workshop was openedby Rigers Bakiu, who welcomed participants and emphasized the importance of engaging students from the Agricultural University of Tirana (AUT) as potential junior ambassadors for promoting Blue Biotechnology initiatives throughout Albania. This event was on purpose organised at the Academy of Sciences of Albania (ASS), because of the importance of this institution on coordinating role in scientific activities at the national level.
Jesús Argente greetedthe participants and mentioned he was traveling with limited connection, but assured he would do his best with the presentation. He noted that Rigers and Silvia could support him if needed, given their familiarity with the projects. Rigers opened a workshop as part of the "From Sea to Solution" awareness campaign, organized under the 2B-Blue Interreg-Euro Med project. The campaign aims to engage students, researchers, and professors in building the Mediterranean Blue Future, with workshops planned in multiple locations including Durres, Shkoder, and Vlora. In addition, he emphasised that the Agricultural University of Tirana students (present in the workshop) could serve as junior ambassadors to promote the project and blue biotechnology awareness in all the territory of Albania. Rigers welcomed participants and introduced Professor Ilia Mikerezi, who was joining as the head of the permanent commission in Biology, Veterinary, and Agricultural Science, at the Academy of Sciences of Albania (ASA), which represent the coordinating institution on science at national level.
Professor Mikerezi, asa geneticist and leader of the Biology, Agriculture, and Veterinary Commission at the Academy of Sciences, welcomed participants to the environmental protection workshop and congratulated the organizers for initiatives aligning with the academy's goals of promoting scientific collaboration. Professor Eda Marku from the University of Tirana emphasized the importance of bringing together stakeholders to address environmental challenges, particularly sea pollution, and suggested future collaboration between similar projects. Silvia, representing ACEPSD, as executive director of this organisation, outlined the organization's mission and past projects in marine conservation, aquaculture, and sustainable development, highlighting their role in the 2B-Blue project focused on blue biotechnology and sustainable aquaculture in Albania.
Jesús presented the2Blue project, an Interreg initiative funded by the EU that aims to boost the Blue Biotechnology community across the Mediterranean region. The project involves 10 partners working to address challenges such as lack of funding, normative adaptation, and public-private collaboration through three main work packages: mapping best practices and actors, testing selected practices in demo sites, and improving policies. Jesús emphasized the importance of collaboration with private institutions to transfer knowledge from science to industry and highlighted the project's focus on multi-trophic aquaculture innovation, remediation, and digitalization across different Mediterranean countries including Albania.
Rigers presented anoverview of the integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) demo site in Vlora Bay, Albania, highlighting the collaboration between ACEPSD and Alb-Adriatico 2013. The presentation detailed the implementation of IMTA systems using sea
cages for growing sea bream and sea bass, along with Mediterranean mussels, pear oysters, and sea cucumbers. Rigers explained the monitoring activities, including measurements of environmental parameters and organism growth, as well as dissemination efforts through T-Lab events and conferences. At the end of his presentation, Rigers presented the promotional video, which was prepared based on the images from the field activities in Vlora Bay. The video is subtitled in English and a voice in English language is explaining the activities conducted in the Albanian DS.
Professor Ilia askedabout relationships with government institutions, to which Rigers responded that they are planning to involve stakeholders at the governmental level to discuss scaling up the technology. It is expected that during the next T-lab event (to be organised together with the Albanian Development Fund – ADF) all the related issues will be discussed with them for scaling up IMTA technology in Albania. In addition, professor Mikerezi, Ylli Take and Rigers Bakiu further discussed the possibility of coordination with ASA unit working on water resources to explore collaboration on water pollution and human health effects.
Furthermore,Rigers and Silvia distributed printed copies of the project analysis/materials
(in Albanian and English) to relevant stakeholders. It represent a set of analyses based recommendations for further developing the blue economy and establish the basis regarding the blue biotechnologies in Albania. After the presentation of the questionnaire by Rigers, who explained that it was created by ACEPSD team with the supervision of University of Murcia (UMU) and National Institute of Biology (NIB) Slovenia representatives, the conversation ended with a discussion about a questionnaire survey for evaluating the workshop and participants' interest in engaging with IMTA technology initiatives. Rigers Bakiu, as project manager of ACEPSD thanked the invited participants, by giving the floor first to Amelia Canovas, who was representing the UMU team in the last session of the event. After the congratulations from Amelia, Rigers Bakiu thanked the other online participants, like Prof. Elisabetta Bonerba from University of Bari, with whom ACEPSD is starting another project about aquaculture, name ADRI-SMART.
