On May 24, the International Olive Council (IOC) hosted a new OLEA meeting at its headquarters in Madrid, organized by the Office of International Projects (OFIPI) of the Office of the Vice President for Research of the University of Jaén (UJA). In it, the teaching center announced the research results obtained in terms of coordination and participation in international R+D+i projects in the field of combating climate change in the olive oil sector.
The projects exhibited at this meeting – which was entitled Fighting the climate change in the olive sector (Fighting the climate change in the olive sector) – were:
SUSTAINOLIVE (Novel approaches to promote the SUSTAInability of OLIVE groves in the Mediterranean)
OLIVE ALIVE + (Increasing the impact of Olivares Vivos in the EU)
SMART-AGRI-SPORE (Fighting the X. fastidiosa threat to EU agriculture – Novel smart biopesticides based on bacterial spores)
COMP0LIVE (New Generation of Biocomposites based on Olive Fibers for Industrial Applications)
OLIVEN (Opportunities for olive oil value chain enhancement through the by-products valorisation)
REFFECT AFRICA (Renewable Energies for Africa: Effective Valorization of Agri-foods wastes)
ARTOLIO (Profitable and Sustainable artisanal olive oil industry in the Mediterranean)
This meeting had about thirty in-person attendees, registering more than 160 registrations to follow the presentations online simultaneously from countries such as Albania, Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Slovenia, Spain, the United States, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Palestine, Peru, Portugal, Tunisia or Turkey.
The OLEA conference was inaugurated by the rector of the University of Jaén, Juan Gómez Ortega, and by Abdellatif Ghedira, executive director of the IOC, and was developed within the framework of the collaboration agreement signed between both institutions in January 2020.
In addition, the IOC had the participation of its deputy executive director Jaime Lillo López; the head of the Olive Growing, Oil Technology and Environment Unit, Lhassane Sikaoui; and the head of the Department of Technical Cooperation and Training, Catarina Bairrão Balula.
On behalf of the UJA, the presenting researchers attended, as well as Gustavo A. Reyes del Paso, Vice Chancellor for Research; Juan Bautista Barroso Albarracín, director of the University Institute for Research in Olive Groves and Olive Oils; and Nieves Muñoz García, as coordinator of the OLEA initiative. In addition, as invited experts, there were members of the CIEMAT (Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research), the CDTI (Center for Industrial Technological Development), the Institute for Research in Food Sciences (CIAL) CSIC – UAM or Cortijo de Guadiana, among others.
OLEA’s objective, since its creation in Brussels in 2017 thanks to the support of the SOST Office of the CDTI of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, is to promote networking between entities interested in forming international consortiums with a view to preparing proposals for research projects. R+D+i and share the results obtained to date in the olive sector for the generation of new collaborative synergies.
