Angelos Ploumis

BluAct is a Transfer network of 7 European port cities including Piraeus, Mataro, Ostend, Galati, Matosinhos, Burgas and Salerno aiming to share good practices in Blue Economy entrepreneurship. The project follows the success of Piraeus’ Blue Growth Initiative, an entrepreneurship competition that offers incubation services to local businesses boosting innovation and job creation. Through an approach of creating Urbact Local Support Groups and engaging local stakeholders and other interested parties, with the ultimate aim of starting up the blue economy, BluAct aims to deliver far reaching results in the respective partner cities.

Following the success of the first generation of the Urbact BluAct Transfer Network - in which 6 European cities were supported to transfer a Good Practice in Blue Growth Entrepreneurship from the city of Piraeus between 2018 and 2020 - a further 4 cities have now also been given the opportunity to learn from the Piraeus Good Practice. The new partners in the BluAct Network will benefit from the rich experience of the city of Piraeus and will work alongside a nominated lead expert who led the original Transfer Network. With much of the hard work already done to break down the Good Practice into understandable blocks, it should be easier second time around to apply the URBACT transfer method.