The Campus de Excelencia Internacional de Medio Ambiente, Biodiversidad y Cambio Global (CEI CamBio) has invested a million Euros in scientific and technical equipment and R&D infrastructure in the five institutions included in project INNOCAMPUS, funded by the Spanish ministry for innovation and science: the Universities of Almeria (UAL), Cádiz (UCA), Córdoba (UCO), Huelva (UHU) and Pablo de Olavide (UPO).
These funds, granted within the framework of Programa Campus de Excelencia Internacional, are essentially aimed at promoting specialisation. The activities carried out by CEI CamBio in this regard are therefore targeted at covering the equipment and infrastructure needs of the aforementioned institutions in order to achieve better R&D results in environment-related fields.
Among the actions implemented at the recipient institutions we must highlight the acquisition of scientific equipment for the Edificio de Centros at UAL, the improvement of the chemical engineering laboratory at UCA, the purchase of new equipment for the biosecurity laboratory at UCO, the installation of fume hoods in the chemical analysis laboratory at UPO and the general improvement of infrastructures.
One of the most significant programmes within this framework, with a budget of 220,000€, has taken place in the Universidad de Huelva, where the cosmochemistry laboratory has been furnished with new equipment. In the words of Jesús de la Rosa, research vice-chancellor at UHU: ‘These funds have been crucial at the present juncture, because they have been used to complement the equipment used in two active research avenues for CIECEM, very much in connection with climate change and biodiversity: astronomy and seaweed biotechnology’. Also, the vice-chancellor points out that seaweed biotechnology is being followed closely by local companies for its potential in the creation of a new energy model beyond fossil fuels. Finally, Jesús de la Rosa stresses that ‘the high capacitation of the laboratories promoted by CEI CamBio will also contribute to the attraction of research groups and private companies to the Comarca de Doñana, which offers the perfect environment for this sort of initiative’.
CEI CamBio is a project focused on development and research around global change and its ecological and socioeconomic impact, with the participation of the Universities of Almeria, Cadiz, Cordoba, Huelva, Internacional de Andalucia, Jaen and the CSIC, under the coordination of Universidad Pablo de Olavide. This coalition of Andalusian knowledge aims at becoming an international reference in environment, biodiversity and global change related studies, by combining Andalusia’s unique conditions for the analysis of ecosystems and the input of the prestigious Andalusian scientific community.