It was the symbol of environmental research for Ravenna, then the emblem of urban decay, today it is reborn as a temple of avant-garde innovation for energy from waste and marine technologies: it was inaugurated, after five years of construction sites, the new Environment, Energy and Sea Research Center in the large real estate complex in via Ciro Menotti 48 in Marina di Ravenna, 26 thousand square meters of space, close to the sea, included in the Ravenna Technopole and within the Emilia High Technology Network -Romagna.
Gardini’s far-sighted vision
Here thirty years ago Raul Gardini with the Ferruzzi Group had already imagined the sustainable future of energy and here an international collaborative research center will now be born: it will be the experimental arm of the University of Bologna, which in the Dante city has courses in Science environment and the Ciri-Frame (Interdepartmental Center for Industrial Research Renewable Sources, Environment, Sea and Energy), will be an incubator and operational laboratory for companies, as well as an official research partner of Fraunhofer, the prestigious German institute, with which the Alma Mater is finalizing a five-year, renewable agreement for the activation in via Ciro Menotti of a joint Italian-German laboratory in the sector of sustainable energy and waste management, called “Fraunhofer Innovation Platform for Waste Valorization and Future Energy Supply at University of Bologna ”(FIP-WE @ UNIBO).
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The alliance between public and private
The ribbon cutting is the result of the agreement between the Municipality of Ravenna (which acquired the property), Alma Mater Studiorum and the Flaminia Foundation (a private body created in the 1990s to support the decentralization of the University of Bologna in Romagna), which thanks to the support of the Region – 1 million euro in co-financing – they were able to renovate the building and build three laboratories, some offices and a first area dedicated to co-working with companies, the first nucleus of a pole that aims to become a point of reference of the Blue economy and sustainable energies. The center will host a research laboratory focused on the up-scale of production processes and recycling of components and cells of electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems (batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells) and here the University will carry out research on ‘offshore innovation for the decommissioning and conversion of dozens of offshore oil platforms.
Second step: incubators and coworking
A second restructuring intervention is already planned, for the creation of the spaces to be used for business incubation and co-working, again on the themes of the circular economy and the Blue Economy, whose management will be the responsibility of the Municipality of Ravenna, a project that has already been awarded a further 421 thousand euros in regional contributions, by participating in the call for proposals “Three-year program of productive activities – support for the development of infrastructures for the competitiveness of the territory”.
From the Ferruzzi group to Palazzo Merlato
«A symbolic place of the great innovation of the city comes back to life – underlines the mayor Michele De Pascale – after a very intense five year job. Raul Gardini wanted this place when Ravenna was at the center of the country’s research and industrial development, but things went differently from what was foreseen by the agreement between the Municipality and the Ferruzzi group and it became an abandoned place. A private property on public land, an intricate affair, which was resolved with the purchase of the building by the Municipality, which sold a part of it on a free loan to the Alma Mater. «With this center we are planting an important seed in the wake of the Pact for work and climate – concludes the president of the Region, Stefano Bonaccini – because it responds to the challenge of the European New Deal to change the way of producing and living. Emilia-Romagna has strong growth forecasts, tourism is experiencing a season of revival and manufacturing has allowed us to cross the pandemic better than others. Now we need to invest in knowledge to compete and ecological, digital and energy transition are the focal point of research and innovation to anticipate change and support the local economy “.