Our Initiatives


Alentejo Green Deal

The Alentejo Regional Green Deal has been developed to guarantee that the region is directly involved in the implementation of the many initiatives under the EU Green Deal by means of a clear local strategy. The strategy, based on the main SP3 pillars, is founded on the use of R&I to kick-start the environmental, social and economic transformations required for a green transition. The event is open for debate with all EU regions which have embedded the Green Deal objectives into their regional strategy.


Alentejo Protocol
The Alentejo Protocol is a joint declaration of intents arising from the European Regions for Smart Communities Summit. The Summit framed the Communities as the cornerstone to achieve the European Decade’s objectives. European Digital Decade, European Green Deal, European Skills Agenda, European Education Area, Europe on Move, European Health Union, Farm-to-Fork Strategy, New European Bauhaus, Living-in.EU, they are all interconnected and for building a smart, sustainable, and better Europe by 2030. Alentejo Protocol aims to contribute to achieving their goals – to provide communities around Europe with space and resources to succeed at the smart transformation.
Eubylakes - Open-Air University for the Europe of the Future - Europe for Citizens
EUbyLakes is a space to discuss on the Europe of the future freely. The idea follows the EC Summer School (SummerCEmp) organised in Reguengos de Monsaraz, on August 2019, with an audience of 40 students and 40 speakers, among whom 2 European Commissioners, 2 ministers, 2 MEP and other top officials. EUbyLakes capitalise on its success factors and continue the conversation across the Union, designing a talking path divided into six Modules and a final Lakathon. The firsts three Modules examines the pillars of future Europe: Cohesion, Democracy, Equality. The seconds move on analysing the drivers of its sustainability: Climate Neutrality, Biodiversity, Digital Innovation. The last event is the Lakathon, a creative marathon to wrap-up the Modules learnings and to develop new ideas to shape the Europe of the Future. The Open-Air University set near six of the most beautiful European lakes: it starts alongside Alqueva (PT), goes to Santillana (ES), Aiguebelette (FR), Iseo (IT), Kerkini (EL) and Saimaa (FI) and ends back in Portugal.
AQUACOMBINE
The AQUACOMBINE project aims to demonstrate combined aquaculture and halophyte farming using the principles of circular economy, where waste and residues are utilised with-in the system to create both internal value and new products. Excess nutrients from the fish production will be used as fertiliser for halophyte plants and filtered through a microbial water treatment system to enable recirculation of the water back into the aquaculture tanks (Recirculating aquaculture system). This aquaponics system is very flexible and can be adapted to a wide variety of locations including rural and remote areas and outermost regions of the EU.Halophyte plants such as Salicornia europaea have the ability to grown in saline soils (marginal land) and/or be irrigated with seawater. The green tips of Salicornia is sold as food, while the woody part is considered a residue.
CHARTER
The Erasmus+ funded project started in January 2021 and will be developed during the next four years. Cultural Heritage Actions to Refine Training, Education and Roles (CHARTER) seeks to create a lasting, comprehensive sectoral skills strategy to guarantee that Europe has the necessary cultural heritage skills to support sustainable societies and economies, including transversal competences such as digital/technological and green/blue economy skills. The consortium of 47 partners represents some of the top education and training institutions, organisations, networks and employers of the European cultural heritage sector. They have joined forces to professionalise the cultural heritage sector and combat the lack of statistical recognition of the sector as an economic force.
AURORAL
AURORAL H2020 (Architecture for Unified Regional and Open digital ecosystems for Smart Communities and wider Rural Areas Large scale application) focuses on increasing connectivity and delivering a digital environment of smart objects interoperable services platforms able to trigger dynamic rural ecosystems of innovation chains, applications and services. Thus, AURORAL contributes to increase economic growth and create jobs in rural areas and to tackle significant societal challenges, contributes to overcoming digital divide between rural and urban areas and to develop the potential offered by increased connectivity and digitisation of rural areas. AURORAL digital environment is demonstrated by cost-efficient and flexible cross-domain applications through large-scale pilots in five European regions. It builds on an open, API-based, interoperable and federated Internet of Things (IoT) architecture and includes a reference implementation supporting flexible integration of heterogeneous services, bridging the interoperability gap of the smart object platforms and creating markets for services in rural areas.
RegHub 2.0 Networks of Regional Hubs for EU Policy Implementation Review

Local and regional authorities are at the forefront of implementing EU policy. RegHub is a platform which aims to involve key local and regional actors through effective consultations in order to collect their experiences on EU policy implementation. This way the EU institutions will benefit from their invaluable input by producing more efficient policies and ultimately bringing the Union closer to its citizens.


Rural Vision Week 2021

To achieve our planet’s sustainability, we cannot leave Rural Regions behind. Join the 'Rural Vision Week' from 22-26 of March–hearing to hearfromand discussing the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas with other rural stakeholders and experts! On this occasion, you can visit the AURORAL virtual stand where the project ambassadors will discuss the project and will give you more details on the content, its strategy, and long-term vision for rural areas.


European Maritime Day 2021
Alexandra Correia, ADRAL-Alentejo Regional Development Agency, Coordinator of the Development and Cooperation Department, was one of the panellists during the 2021 edition of European Maritime Day. The workshop will address the role of maritime clusters in the green recovery. Maritime clusters play an important role in the development of the blue economy in the regions. This workshop discussed the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis on the sector and the role of maritime clusters in overcoming these difficult times. This will involve presenting concrete examples from different sea basins on their sustainability pathways and green recovery actions. The EU Green Deal and its ambitious goals on carbon neutrality and circular economy will also be discussed as they provide an important impetus for a sustainable maritime sector. The cooperation of different actors within the clusters as well as with other regional actors will also be discussed.
Culture KIRC Fest
A festival bringing together culture agents, academics, politicians, entrepreneurs and artists for an open dialogue will take place online in February. The three-day virtual event builds on the Virtual Artistic Residence and the participatory channel 'OurFutureEurope.EU', which took place in summer 2020. Panel debates, interviews and live concerts made up the festival, where speakers include Márton Herczeg, Head of Unit Strategy and Impact at the EIT, Maria da Graça Carvalho, Member of the European Parliament, Louise Haxthausen, UNESCO Representative to the European Union and Director of the UNESCO Liaison Office in Brussels and Mariachiara Esposito, Policy Officer at the European Commission.

Emerging Regions 2019
Emerging Regions Alentejo, as one of the best examples of emerging region in Brussels invited, last 11 October 2019, all the European emerging regions to discuss about the need for Europe of having more dynamic regions to cooperate together for growth, integration, and sustainability. Hosted by the region of Alentejo, the panel event was held at Portuguese Permanent Representation to the European Union. New concepts for the upcoming financial framework were presented. Especially enlightening were the interventions of Maria da Graça Carvalho, Member of European Parliament, Thomas Wobben, Director of Directorate Legislative Work COTER of the European Committee of the Regions, Isabelle Maës, European Commission’s DG-Move, Hélène-Diane Dage, European Commission DG GROW, Roberto Grilo, President of Alentejo Regional authority- CCDR and José Calixto, President of Alentejo Development Agency with moderation of Mr. Marcos Nogueira. Now on, European Emerging Regions have a forum and a voice for enhancing cooperation and pushing even further the frontiers of territorial innovation.

Alentejo Regional Tasting

Alentejo Region hosted the participants of EU week of regions during the opening reception. Participants could taste amazing Alentejo gastronomy and try the unique wines of the region. More than 2000 people enjoyed a bit, and a bite of Alentejo food. This was a great opening for all participating on European Week of Regions and Cities.