LPRC leads the SEAWINGS project!

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La Palma Research Centre is the coordinator of a recently-funded EDF (European Defence Fund) project that has just started – SEAWINGS (Sea/Air Interphasic Wing-In-Ground Effect Autonomous Drones). The project was submitted to the Call “Open call dedicated to SMEs for development of innovative and future-oriented defence solutions”. The project will last for 42 months and has received a total funding of almost 4 Million Euros.

The SEAWINGS project will develop a new class of military surveillance drones to operate in the sea/air interface giving rise to a new type of unmanned craft, Unmanned Wing-In-Ground Vehicles, capable of very high payloads, inexpensive, long range that do no require infrastructure or launch vehicle for departure and landing.

The consortium for this innovative project includes:

  • La Palma Research Centre SL (Coordinator) – Spain
  • Universidad Politecnica de Madrid – Spain
  • INESC TEC – Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciencia – Portugal
  • Trisolaris Advanced Technologies, Lda. – Portugal
  • Zanasi Alessandro SRL – Italy
  • Porvalor – Ativos de Engenharia Lda. – Portugal

More information can be found on the following images:

La Palma Research Centre

LPRC presents itself to the TIMREX MSc programme students

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La Palma Research Centre (LPRC) was present at an event to introduce the non-academic partners to the students of the TIMREX MSc programme. The Partner Introductory Event was an opportunity for students to learn about the activities and added value from industry partners in TIMREX with regards to innovations in mineral exploration and the opportunities for students to join their activities.

LPRC presented the company, its mission and vision for the geosciences and sustainable development. The presentation then focused on the TIMREX work on mapping Innovation and Entrepreneurship-related skills and competencies, how these are considered in TIMREX and how students can benefit from acquiring certain skills for professional and personal development alike. The title of the presentation was “Defining future skills and competencies needs for the raw materials sector”.

Work will continue with the integration in the TIMREX curricula of means to deliver the selected skills and competencies.

 

La Palma Research Centre

LPRC joins the INCORE meeting in La Reunion

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The INCORE partners met in the Island of La Reunión (France) on the 21-23 November 2022. LPRC was present there contributing to the representativenes of the Canary Islands as an Outermost Region – which is one of the company’s main missions.

The first day of events happened on 21 November 2022, hosted by the partner École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs Réunion Océan Indien – ESIROI (Université de La Réunion). In this opportunity, external stakeholders from the island attended the open event to deliver high level presentations. In addition, the event counted with contributions from members of the Regional Council, companies, and representatives of local research & innovation initiatives. A roundtable discussion on the INCORE project, Innovation and Entrepeurship completed the day.

The second day of meetings was dedicated to consortium’s discussions. Here, the Work Package leaders presented the progress and future tasks of their work, followed by feedback and discussions on how to align the work plan for the upcoming months, including the following topics:

  • Coordination activities
  • Training programmes for young entrepreneurs and start-ups
  • Development of new modalities for HEI-SME cooperation
  • Development of joint and individual actions for transformational change
  • Communication and dissemination management (lead by LPRC)

The final day started with Rosanna West, who conducted EIT HEI Initiative workshop and ecosystem, from which recommendations were collected. The next section was led by Dr. Oliver Schwabe, the leader of the Call for Start-ups and SMEs to receive high level mentoring from INCORE expertise.

Follow the INCORE project news on the website and social media channels for more information on how the project is changing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Outermost Regions!

UNEXUP

LPRC organizing the UNEXUP Final Conference!

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The UNEXUP project, funded by EIT RawMaterials, held its final conference in Brussels – Belgium, on 18th November 2022. This event was organized by the La Palma Research Centre.

With the objective to present the project’s outcomes, robotic development, field missions and commercialization of the unique technology, participants also had the opportunity to watch the UX-1Neo robot in action inside the pool of Nemo33. LPRC chose Nemo33 as the venue for the event, which is a diving school with the necessary facilities to deploy UX-1Neo underwater.

The event kickstarted with welcome words given by the project coordinator (Norbert Zajzon), followed by a presentation about the overview and progress of the UNEXUP project during the last three years. The next presentation was dedicated to the complete evolution of the robotic technology: from the UX-1 that was built during the UNEXMIN project, to the UX-1Neo – developed during UNEXUP. After that, the CEO of UNEXMIN GeoRobotics (UGR) covered the field missions and main results that were achieved, as well as the commercialization of the spatial and geoscientific surveying missions beyond the UNEXUP lifetime. The final talk was about the post-processing & geological interpretation of the data collected by the robot. Finally, for the last session of the conference, the demonstration of UX-1Neo performing underwater autonomously in Nemo33 pool, was done.

The UNEXUP Final Conference was a successful event for the consortium to present to the audience what was accomplished in the past three years, and to discuss about the future of the technology and the consortium. LPRC is glad to be part of this project and to have organised such a successful event!

La Palma Research Centre

LPRC team joins the Raw Materials Week 2022 in Brussels

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The Raw Materials Week is already a current and important event in the raw materials value chain panorama. LPRC has attended all previous editions since 2o17 and this year was no exception. As usual, the Raw Materials Week is a great opportunity to discuss and present current EU projects, catch up with raw materials professionals and engage in new ideas and visions for the future of the EU.

This year’s event included many relevant topics for raw materials development in Europe: EU Horizon technology success stories (where the ROBOMINERS project was mentioned), the 9th Annual High-Level Conference of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on raw materials, including EU-Ukraine strategic partnership on raw materials and batteries, Future trends Innovation and skills for raw materials (where the TIMREX project was used as an education-focused example) and Knowledge needs: future supply/demand foresight.

Projects that were mentioned during the event – during presentations, through posters and videos – and where LPRC contributes to included ROBOMINERS, START and TIMREX. Finally, the UNEXUP Final Conference was also included in the event’s agenda as a Satellite event.

Until next year!

 

EFG

LPRC participation at the CROWDTHERMAL Final Conference, Berlin, October 2022

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On 19 and 20 October 2022 the CROWDTHERMAL project held its final events in Berlin – Germany, with the participation of consortium partners in person and online. The purpose of the event was to review the progress of the work packages, future tasks, as well as administration and financial issues to be completed before the official closure: December 2022.

On the first day, 19th November 2022, the consortium held an internal meeting at IZES facilities, in which LPRC (represented by Márcio Tameirão) introduced the current state of the CROWDTHERMAL Core Services – followed by discussions and comments on how to improve them – the Core Services were developed by LPRC. The next day was dedicated to the Final Conference of the CROWDTHERMAL project, as a joint event with COST DHC: ‘’First Geothermal District Heating and Cooling Day event’’. In this opportunity, LPRC introduced the Core Services to the wider audience that attended the event, with an overview of the 7 tools that are currently available on the project website to help project developers, communities and local authorities to implement geothermal projects in Europe.

The CROWDTHERMAL consortium during the Berlin meeting

The next two months, up to the project final day, will be dedicated to addressing comments and implementing the necessary changes in CROWDTHERMAL tools to further improve the user’s experience and added value in their projects.

AGH

RaVeN Project Kick-Off meeting, Krakow, October 2022

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The RaVeN project – a new EIT RawMaterials project in which LPRC takes part – had its Kick-Off meeting in Krakow, Poland in on the 17 and 18 October. This was the first time that project partners got together to discuss the implementation of the project, with special emphasis on the EIT Label that RaVeN applied for its Master’s programme.

RaVeN is a new two-year M.Sc. degree scheme that take into account a wide geographical spectrum, diversification and needs of social inclusion, and builds the capacity of higher education in the RIS and ESEE regions. Its main strength is its innovative approach to teaching along the raw materials value chain through the involvement of non-academic experts, mobility exchanges, industry and start-ups to support the learning process.

The meeting agenda included discussions on Management and project coordination, the EIT Label process and next steps, Students recruitment, Didatics, Summer School, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and, finally, Dissemination and Communication. LPRC leads the last of these Work Packages, but also contributes to some other Work Packages and Tasks.

As part of the its work until now, LPRC has been drafting a few communication and dissemination tools (website, social media, banner, etc) and the overall strategy that will help with the recruitment of students for this Master’s Programme on the Raw Materials Value Chain.

Follow the project on its website and social media for more information!

La Palma Research Centre

LPRC attends AGEO 8th Consortium Meeting in Dublin

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La Palma Research Centre (LPRC) attended the AGEO 8th Consortium Meeting, hosted by University College Dublin (UCD) in Dublin, from the 6th to the 8th of October. In this meeting, more than 30 members of the international consortium presented the progress being made in each one of the five pilots that are being developed within the project, conducted collaborative sessions to improve and to share ideas regarding its development and implementation, and harmonized the contents of the book that will be published as an output for AGEO.

The event was divided in three days:

  • On the 6th, we discussed sustainability, the roadmap for the AGEO App for geohazard monitoring, the harmonization of the book chapters and held parallel sessions.
  • A specialized session was held on the 7th to discuss educational contents, usability aspects of the AGEO App, and the crisis management conducted by IGME during the eruption of La Palma.
  • On the 8th, the attendees visited the Causeway Coast and the Carrick-a-Rede pilots in Northern Ireland, hosted by Geological Survey Northern Ireland (GSNI)

As the leaders for the Communication Work Package (WP2), La Palma Research Centre presented the roadmap for communication and the new table of contents for the communications chapter that will be included in the AGEO book.

You can follow this project on the AGEO website and @ageoatlantic on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

La Palma Research Centre

TIMREX Steering Committee meeting, Zagreb, October 2022

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LPRC took part in the most recent TIMREX project meeting, which brought the partners together for discussions on the project objectives and activities, in Zagreb, Croatia, on the 3 and 4 of October.

The meeting agenda included discussions on Summary of the EIT label application and labelling process, the Joint curriculum, the Role of the Exploration entrepreneurship course, the Innovation and entrepreneurship development, the Curriculum development towards Lighthouse targets , the Pilot Cohort, the project Homepage and Promo video. From LPRC, Luís Lopes presented the company’s work on Innovation and Entrepreneuship skills and competencies for the Masters programme, while Márcio Tameirão presented the work on the project homepage and planned video, and the Roadmap for 2022 KPIs, deliverables and preparation for 2023 tasks.

LPRC will continue to lead and implement work on both the Innovation and Entrepreneurship skills and competencies development and work on the project’s communication and dissemination actions.

Follow the project on its website and social media for more information!

LPRC attends the premiere of LAVA BOMBS in La Palma

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Last Saturday our La Palma team attended the premiere of the LAVA BOMBS documentary produced by GeoTenerife (full credits, more news and details: https://twitter.com/LavaBombsFilm).

GeoTenerife was on the ground essentially from the beginning of the Cumbre Vieja eruption that started on 19 September 2021, filming and making interviews.

The cinematic scenes and drone footages are breathtaking, and the narrative is deep and compelling. But where this movie truly excels is that it takes us deep into the human dimension of the eruption. The strongest part of the documentary is where citizens, scientists and local politicians are sharing their thoughts, feelings and uncertainties as the volcano is erupting in the background.

There are no self-proclaimed prophets or omnipotent scientists making big statements here, only decent human beings, doing their best to manage a crisis, working at the limits of our understanding of volcanic processes, where uncertainty is always a key factor in the equation.

An impressive documentary that dares to touch so many sensitive issues. Living through the eruption on La Palma as ordinary citizens we were deeply moved by this film that focuses on us, and cares so much for the citizens of our island.