BCT Hubs

BCTHubs, which stands for 𝑩𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝑪𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒏𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 𝑬𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑯𝒖𝒃𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑬𝑼 𝑾𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑴𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔, is an EU project that aims to build Blue Culture Technology Excellence Hubs in the participating widening countries, Malta, Greece and Bulgaria. These Excellence Hubs will serve as permanent structures supporting with new innovative solutions and products the sustainable protection, restoration, valorisation, management, accessibility and promotion of Underwater Cultural Heritage (UWCH).

Although the new Hubs will be scoped regionally, they will be interconnected and oriented towards national and international synergies (i.e. beyond regional borders), pursuing cross-border collaborations on common strategic goals and alongside value adding chains. Each Excellence Hub will bring together all regional/national actors related to Blue Culture and UWCH, including research/academia, businesses, public sector, and societal actors (i.e. 4-helix approach), which will mutually reinforce their capacities and effectiveness towards raising innovation excellence in sustainable Blue Economy/Culture in respective regions.

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage is one of the key partners in this project and a key player in the Maltese Hub, in partnership with other organisations from Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Montenegro and Israel. Other partners based in Malta include Divers Alert Network (DAN) Europe, the Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS) and Aqua Biotech.

The Superintendence of Cultural Heritage is a Work Package leader for Work Package 3 which seeks to establish the propensity for this project, along with the criteria needed for the successful implementation of these Hubs within a wider European context.

The BCTHubs project is an EU funded project, and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2021-2027 research and innovation programme under the HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-ACCESS-04-01 (Excellence Hubs) grant agreement No 101087146.