Blue Deal is a consortium of Mediterranean companies and institutions promoting trans-national activity in the Blue Energy sector. They build links across SMEs, public authorities, and research institutions to utilise blue energy for a range of sectors.
The Blue Deal Open Innovation competition shared 12 challenges on konfer. The competition was deemed a success as konfer gave Blue Deal easy access to UK solutions for global energy challenges. Proposals from three UK universities made it to the competition final held at the Business Forum.
Carmen Renovell, Centro Europeo de Empresas e Innovación Valencia, said the competition aimed to use open innovation to address global energy challenges. ‘The proposals from the UK were really interesting and covered ground- breaking innovations including the use of robots for underwater surveys. Without konfer, we would not have heard about, or had access to the solutions developing in the UK, built on ground-breaking research and experience. Konfer helped us make terrific connections with UK renewable energy experts. There is some ongoing dialogue with the connections we made, which exemplifies open, international innovation. They continue to inform the thinking of our consortium and will certainly help us turn challenges such as Larnaka’s seaweed problems, into renewable opportunities. Without konfer I doubt we would have had any UK responses."
Blue Deal received UK proposals via konfer for: