Seeking to reinforce technology and create value in the municipality’s business fabric based on a cooperation strategy, the Municipal Council of Vila Nova de Cerveira formalized, on April 29th, a collaboration protocol with the Pole of Innovation in Polymer Engineering (PIEP ). The protocol results from the efforts and commitment of the parties to align the offer with the needs of different actors, promoting cooperative and interdisciplinary innovation, as well as contributing to strengthening the competitiveness of companies and, consequently, to the socioeconomic development of the municipality and the region. in the field of developing products, business models, systems, services, and innovative solutions on a polymeric basis with a multisectoral scope.

Rui Teixeira, Mayor of Vila Nova de Cerveira, explains that this partnership with PIEP as a Technology and Innovation Center and Interface Center of the University of Minho “is a first step towards the creation of the longed-for and necessary Innovation Center for Cerveira, to enhance the capacity to create knowledge, based on the training of more qualified human resources, reinforcing technological intensity in the production of goods and services oriented towards global value chains and bringing the scientific and technological system closer to economic and social activities and creative.”

Nuno Guimarães, president of the PIEP Board of Directors, highlights the main objectives of this vital and promising collaboration: “to highlight the regional endogenous capacity to respond to trends in the plastics and composites sector; to specific innovation challenges; to promote the participation of companies in national and European research, development, and innovation projects; to stimulate creativity and capture relevant knowledge; to enhance the application and transfer of new knowledge produced to different application sectors; to assist in the qualification of human resources in polymer engineering at companies and to promote a culture of sustainable development, in environmental, sociological and economic vectors.