2021, A CHALLENGING BUT RISING YEAR AT CONTACTICA

2021 has been a very difficult year for society and all industries due to the glocal COVID-19 crisis. However, some positive effects have been seen among both citizens and industries: innovation has helped to become more resilient in the face of an ecomic and/or health crisis.

Contactica is the perfect example of this situation. Despide the personal and professional challenges due to the pandemic, our company has met adversity with innovation and won the battle. If you want to know more about HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSSINESS IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY, check our last publication.

2021, a very successful year at CONTACTICA

Founded in 2009, CONTACTICA is a private Innovation Consulting Company that grows by guiding and leading innovation projects with know-how and capacities applied to new product development. CONTACTICA has extensive experience in the preparation and submission of collaborative European proposals and, since 2009, has already obtained funding for more than 30 national and European projects in diverse Research and Development (R&D) fields, including agri-food, biotechnology, environment and eco-innovation, health, energy, and materials (check our funded projects here).

During this long decade of experience in coordination and management of R&D projects, CONTACTICA has created an exceptional network of partners at national and international level and the knowledge about suitable financing sources for each client. Our working method aims that our customers get the best results from their projects, minimizing investment through access to public financing.

In 2021, CONTACTICA has been coordinating 3 European R&D projects:

  • ALEHOOP, a 6.7 million € H2020 BBI sustainable biotech project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019-SO3-D3, composed of 16 partners from 6 European countries) for the sustainable transformation of macroalgae and legume-based waste and by-products into natural dietary proteins thanks to the development of biorefineries. 
  • PORTABLECRAC, a 2.8 million € H2020 SPIRE sustainable industrial innovation project (H2020-SPIRE-09-2017, composed of 8 partners from 3 European countries) to improve water potability treatments with Activated Carbon (AC), by recovering AC in a more sustainable way, with 4 times reduction in CO2 emissions and strengthening a circular-local economy by decreasing 86% in cost per kg/AC, and therefore  contributing to a decrease overseas import of AC to Europe.
  • EUCALIVA, a 2.4 million € H2020 BBI project (BBI-D04-2016, composed of 6 partners from 4 European countries) to innovatively re-use lignin from pulping process and underused product in Europe as a raw material and contribute to the challenge of natural resources.

In addition, during 2021 CONTACTICA has been part of other 4 European R&D projects with sustainability assessments and/or communication & dissemination actions:

  • SoildiverAgro, a 7 million € H2020ERA-NET project (H2020-SFS-2018-2, formed by 22 partners from 8 countries) to increase the quality and production capacity of crops in Europe, with innovative practices such as mycorrhiza-plant growth, management of soil organisms or novel pest alert systems.
  • UP4HEALTH, a 5.5 million € H2020 BBI project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019-SO3-D3, composed of 10 partners from 5 European countries) to contribute to a zero-waste sustainable process by working on transforming olive and grape pomace, nut by-products and olive pits into enhanced products (natural fruit polyphenol-rich water, polyphenol-rich dietary fibres, natural oily fruit extracts and prebiotic xylooligosaccharides) that will be used in functional food, nutraceutical supplements and cosmetics. 
  • BeonNAT, a 5.7 million € H2020 BBI project (H2020-BBI-JTI-2019-SO1-R1, formed by 16 partners from 6 European countries) promotes the production of a number of bioproducts and contributes to the use of marginal lands in Europe.
  • LABPLAS, a 5 million € H2020 project (H2020-SC5-2020-2, composed of 17 partners from 8 countries) to facilitate the mapping of plastic distribution routes in oceans thanks to a novel approach and cutting-edge computational tools for determining the small ,  micro- and nano-plastics and their associated chemicals in the environment.
  • NeoGiANT, a 9.3 million € H2020 project (H2020-LC-GD-2020, composed of 20 partners from 9 countries) for the development of novel natural antimicrobial products for the control and prevention of the most relevant diseases in animal production based on natural extracts derived from agri-food byproducts as raw materials.

CONTACTICA has a wide range of services for Research and Development projects: we accompany you throughout the entire proposal submission process, from the concept validation of the project, the shape of the consortium, to the proposal writing and the support in the submission process.

In 2021, CONTACTICA presented several R&D projects for national or European funding, of which 6 EU projects were successfully awarded with 27.2 million €:

  • DELICIOUS, a 2.9 million € PRIMA 2021 project (PRIMA-2021-Section1: Agri-food value chain, formed by 10 partners from 5 Mediterranean countries) for “Understanding the consumer food choices & promotion of healthy and sustainable Mediterranean diet and lifestyle in children and adolescents through behavioural change actions”.
  • MAST3RBOOST, a 5.9 million € Horizon Europe project (HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01, composed of 13 partners from 9 countries) for “Maturing the production standards of ultraporous structures for high density hydrogen storage bank operating on swinging temperatures and low compression”.
  • CALIMERO, a 3.5 million € Horizon Europe project (HORIZON-CL6-2021-ZEROPOLLUTION-01-06, formed by 12 partners from 7 countries) for the “Industry case studies analysis to improve environmental performance and sustainability of bio-based industrial processes”.
  • LIFE CARBON2MINE, a 4.6 million € LIFE project (LIFE-2021-SAP-CLIMA-CCM, formed by 7 Spanish partners) for the “Carbon sequestration through sustainable forest and grassland management for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation in mining areas”.
  • w-AccelerON, a 1.01 million € Next Generation Europe funded project (SoE-20211013 in which the company Envirohemp participates), funded by CDTI thanks to a “EC seal of excellence” to “Provide an accelerator effect to take PORTABLE MT technology to the market, as a granular activated carbon regeneration service, through an innovative portable plant”.

Of these 5 awarded projects, CONTACTICA will coordinate the CALIMERO project and will participate in all of them with actions for project management, communication & dissemination and/or sustainability assessments, optimizing the projects’ impact.

The CONTACTICA‘s sustainability service provides added value to the projects guiding clients towards more environmentally, economically and socially responsible production processes and products along their entire life cycle. CONTACTICA has a dedicated department conducting economic and environmental feasibility studies (Life Cycle Analysis and Life Cycle Cost Assessments), applying eco-design and optimization tools and advising on the new EU Taxonomy regulation(see our post on the EU taxonomy – the environmentally sustainable activities classification system).

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