The trustees of the Campus of International Excellence of the Sea of the University of Cádiz have unanimously approved the incorporation of the Consortium and have highlighted the promotion of the socioeconomic development of the province of Cádiz and its commitment to innovation and the Blue Economy.
The F.CEI·MAR (Fundación Campus de Excelencia Internacional del Mar) held an extraordinary session of its Board of Trustees on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, the main point of which was the incorporation as a member of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone Consortium, a Public Institution that promotes the socioeconomic development of the province.
The inclusion of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone has been approved with the support of the board. This integration will allow the CEI·MAR Foundation to strengthen its links with the business field, thanks to the proximity to the industrial group that this institution brings together, thus helping it to fulfill one of its primary objectives, which is the creation of an academic, scientific, cultural, research and innovation environment, in favor of the technological transfer and the knowledge generated to the industry and society.
This link is even more notable, if possible, thanks to the commitment of both entities to the development of activities to promote R&D&I and the Blue Economy sectors. An example of this is Incubazul, the first high-tech incubator in the Blue sector of Spain, developed by Zona Franca de Cádiz, in which ideas and projects related to the seas and oceans are promoted.
CEI·MAR and the Cádiz Free Zone Consortium find as a uniting point, in this way, their commitment to providing innovative solutions to increase the competitiveness of the territory where their work is carried out, with special focus on inclusive and sustainable growth.
This has been pointed out during this Extraordinary Board of Trustees by the main representatives of both organizations. For his part, Casimiro Mantel, rector of the University of Cádiz (UCA) and president of the CEI MAR Foundation (governance body of the Campus of Excellence), who chaired the meeting, defined this union as: "very positive, helping to take advantage not only of the lines of action channeled in the same direction, but also of the individual strengths of each entity, now put at the service of a common good. A union that, on the one hand, contributes to strengthening one of the priority ecosystems from the University of Cádiz: the maritime, hand in hand with some fundamental actors in the province, and which, in the same way, comes to strengthen the CEI·MAR Consortium in its entirety, and the rest of the entities that make it up. Now adding 21 with this new incorporation, and seeing all of them increased their added value, thanks to the synergies resulting from this collaboration that we inaugurate today.
On the other hand, Fran González, special delegate of the State for the Free Zone of Cádiz, has stated that "this alliance represents a continuation and reinforcement of the collaboration that we have already been carrying out with the University of Cádiz and that led us to jointly celebrate last November the Blue Zone Forum-Innovazul 2024, the great Blue Economy event, which turned Cádiz into a great center of reflection and debate in which national and international experts met. Our intention is to continue in this line of joint work with the aim of enriching the ecosystem and continuing to be the great pole of the Blue Economy, entrepreneurship and innovation.”
The session, held in a hybrid manner, was also attended in person by Carmen Garrido, scientific coordinator of CEI·MAR and member of the executive committee of the Foundation; Eva Mena, managing director of the CEI·MAR Foundation; María Jesús Ortega, vice-rector for Research and Transfer of the UCA and member of the executive committee of the Foundation; and Carmen Camelo, vice-rector of Entrepreneurship and Employability of the UCA. Online, there has been the follow-up of José Manuel Fedriani, coordinator of INCUBAZUL, and that of multiple representatives of the CEI·MAR employers.
The Blue Zone Forum – InnovAzul 2024 event materialized, for the first time, the collaboration between the Campus of Excellence and the Public Institution. Its good results, to whose efforts the organizational collaboration of the University of Cádiz was added, marked a clear path of synergy on which it has been working since then. The Cádiz Free Trade Zone Consortium and the “expertise” it brings to the CEI·MAR aggregation enhances the role of the Campus of Excellence as a Blue Economy HUB in southern Europe. This union, at the same time, expands the scope of action, both geographical and sectoral, of both organizations.
