la Caixa Foundation's Promove 2024 program allocates €5.2M and counts on FCT partnership

There are new projects and ideas being born in the interior of Portugal to enhance the territory, in the 2024 edition of the Promove Program - The Future of the Interior. The winners of the 6th edition of the program have now been announced and 45 initiatives have been selected from a total of 134 applications, which will receive total non-repayable support of over 5.2 million euros.

The Promove Program - The Future of the Interior is an initiative of the "la Caixa" Foundation, in partnership with FCT and with the collaboration of BPI, which aims to support highly innovative initiatives that contribute to the development and enhancement of inland regions.

Extracting pigments from trees for use in the textile industry, using Miranda's donkeys to prevent rural fires, or harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to optimize the irrigation of olive groves or cheese production, are just a few examples of innovative projects with the potential to sustainably enhance Portugal's interior, which have now received this support. The list of winners includes 11 mobilizing Research and Development (R&D) projects (co-financed by FCT), 18 pilot projects and 16 innovative ideas. The supported projects will be implemented in the interior regions of the north (11), center (10) and Alentejo (8). In the area of innovative ideas, aimed at higher education students, the central region has ten of the teams selected, while the northern region has six teams.

Since the Program was launched in 2018, this is the edition with the most initiatives supported and the highest total value of support. In its six editions, the Promove Program has already supported 146 initiatives, with a total investment of around 17 million euros (5 million euros from FCT).

See the summaries of the winning projects from the 6th edition of the Program and the ideas that contribute to enhancing the countryside.

Applications for the 7th edition of the Promove Program start on November 25, 2024 and will run until January 29, 2025.