The Government of the Azores, through the Regional Fund for Science and Technology, is part of the network of European funding agencies of the Marine Biotech project, which has launched its third call for scientific projects.
 
Under the international call, involving 12 European countries, seven scientific projects were approved for the overall amount of seven million Euros; METAMINE is one these projects and involves Azorean researchers.
 
According to the Regional Director for Science and Technology, "the results obtained are very positive" insofar as these calls "are extremely competitive and have a high degree of scientific excellence."
 
"Once again, the excellent skills and preparation of regional teams to take part in international calls is confirmed," said Bruno Pacheco.
 
The initial investment of the Regional Science and Technology Fund was set at 100 thousand Euros, allowing the participation of the Azorean team in a project amounting to 1.8 million Euros.
 
The Regional Director defended that the financial mechanism for this type of international projects (ERA-NET) "allows the access of regional researchers to these international calls, leveraging public investment in the internationalisation of regional science."
 
The Marine Biotech network consists of 19 European funding agencies from 14 countries that search for the complementarity between national and European resources in order to co-finance transnational Marine Biotechnology projects.