The University of Algarve (UAlg) will have a Technological Pole focused on the areas of «renewable energies and information and communication technologies», in spaces that will be requalified for this purpose, in both fields de Faro of the institution. Although there are still some steps to make this structure a reality, interested in settling there are not lacking.
The creation of this Technological Pole will be possible with the support of European Union Funds. To obtain them, UAlg has already done its homework – which has already received, in part, the approval of the European bodies – and is just waiting for the opening of the notice to deliver its application.
The announcement was made by António Branco, dean of the Algarve university, in an interview with Sul Informação and to Rádio Universitária do Algarve RUA FM. In this conversation, that you can hear in full here, the head of the Algarve university took stock of the four-year mandate, but also spoke of the future, namely the Technological Pole project.
«On the part of UAlg, the work is practically finished. Now, the Algarve's Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR) needs to issue the notice, so that we can apply. As far as we know, the ceiling of funding for this project are around 3,5 million euros», he revealed.
“The project has already gone beyond the first phase, that of general mapping, which has already been accepted by Brussels. Now, we are in the second phase, which is the identification of the spaces in which we will intervene, the equipment that will be acquired and the associated budgets», he said.
According to the head of the Algarve Academy, there will be spaces dedicated to hosting companies in the technological area, both in Penha and Gambelas. The decision not to concentrate everything in one campus it is linked, he said, to the desire to "deepen the parity" of the two UAlg subsystems, objective assumed by António Branco when he applied and which he considers to have achieved.
It is, considered the rector, "an essential project for the strategic development of the University of Algarve and for the deepening of technology transfer to the business sector".
And there are already companies trying to mark a place in the future structure. «We are already interested. In the digital area, we already have a very large group of companies that are just waiting for this project to move forward so that they can come to incubate within the institution, even to create dynamics of connection with researchers, for the creation of businesses and added value », assured.
This process, which is expected to end soon, started a few years ago, when the different partners of the Technological Park project Faro, associated with UAlg, decided that it would be more profitable to advance, from now on, with the Technological Pole aspect, taking it «into the university».
«The Technological Park, as far as I know, is an idea that still stands. It is planned for an extensive land in Gambelas, next to the UAlg Campus, which goes almost as far as the Airport», explained António Branco.
But, unlike the Technological Pole, which will move forward soon, the Park has very heavy logistics associated with it. "This is a project that involves the Municipal Master Plan, as well as finding a great level of private investment, among other things," he added.
«When it was realized that the Technological Park was a project that could hardly be implemented in the short term, because it involves very complex issues, both myself and engineer David Santos, former president of CCDR do Algarve, suggested, at a meeting of the partners of this project, that the heart this Park – the Technological Pole – had to move forward now», he recalled.
António Branco explained that, at the time, there was "total harmony" between him and David Santos, not least because "there were funds in the current Community Support Framework for this structure, which ran the risk of not being used."
In addition to ensuring that community funds destined for the region are not lost, bringing this value into the fields of UAlg will bring other gains, in the view of the still dean of UAlg. “By being inside the university, these structures are seen as supra-regional, which is an advantage. In this way, all the councils look at the Technological Pole as something that can be theirs», he considered.
Despite this being a project that involves large amounts of money, António Branco guarantees that it is a «perfectly sustainable investment, within the scope of UAlg's budgetary capacity, because a large component of the contribution is through the imputation of expenses of the university itself, such as salaries and others» .
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