From this Tuesday until Friday, a delegation of centres led by Lluís Rovira, director of CERCA, will visit different research and innovation entities linked to the Finnish government.

The Catalan delegation, made up of directors and researchers from Agrotecnio, CIMNE, CRAG, CREAF, CTFC, ICIQ, IRTA and members of the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda will meet on Wednesday with representatives of the Institute of Natural Resources (LUKE), the Institute for the Environment (SYKE) and a delegation from the Lapland region. On Thursday, the delegation will be received at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests and will meet with the European Forestry Institute (EFI), the Research and Technology Centre (VTT) and the Geological and Mining Institute (GTK).

The meetings, all with a high technical and institutional component, are expected to make known the importance of the research activity of the participating centres, as well as the Catalan research and innovation ecosystem that must be a reference in Europe .

The mission is part of the collaboration agreement signed between CERCA and the Natural Resources Institute of Finland (LUKE) last March. Thanks to this meeting, CERCA opens up the research and innovation potential of the Catalan system of centres to potential new partners with whom there is currently little or no relationship. Also, it is expected that the visit will open the doors to new alliances between institutions for the upcoming 2023 and 2024 calls from the European Commission.