Marine Research Centre (CIM) of the Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) in Rovinj organised an info-day about the project Development of system for control and protection of ports from introduction of alien species – ProtectAS, which was held on Tuesday, 24 May 2022 at 11:00 hours in the Rovinj Multimedia Centre (MMC).

The topic of the impact of ballast waters to the proliferation of harmful organisms by marine transport was presented to the general public and the collaborators in the field of seafaring, healthcare and environmental protection by a series of lectures. Namely, with the further development of climate changes, these organisms could have an ever increasing undesirable impact to marine environment and to human health. The preliminary results of this project were also presented.

On 25 May 2022, the second partner meeting was held in the premises of the CIM IRB in Rovinj. At this meeting, project partners examined and discussed project activities and the plan of work and agreed on the tasks for the upcoming period.

ProtectAS project was launched in 2020, and the anticipated project duration is three years. The aim of this project is to develop a system of control and protection of port areas from the introduction of foreign and harmful organisms, which will enable the decrease of the vulnerability of the coastal areas to the possible introduction of harmful organisms due to climate change. Research is being done in two Croatian ports, those of Rijeka and Ploče, and it will be possible to implement this system in other ports as well.

Besides the University of Dubrovnik, which is project coordinator, experts and researches from the CIM IRB Rovinj, the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the University of Zagreb, the Teaching Institute for Public Health of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and the Faculty of Maritime Studies of the University of Rijeka also participate in this project. The ProtectAS project is funded by the funds of the Operational Programme Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014 – 2020 (OPKK) from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), within the call for grants ‘Scheme for strengthening of applied research for adaptation measures with respect to climate change’. The total value of the project amounts to HRK 3,203,602.53.