Blue energy is a growing sector in Europe that has been recently observed as a potential driver for employment and innovation and a promising study subject for R&D and EU-funded projects. Nevertheless, a limited number of operating plants exists in the Mediterranean and in the Programme area and only a few of them focused on ports and coastal infrastructures as potential platforms for blue energy production.
Therefore, the overall objective of COASTENERGY is to foster the creation of a favorable environment for business initiatives in the Blue Energy sector and promote the realization of coastal blue energy systems in the Programme area, particularly focusing on wave and thermal energy converters to be integrated in structures such as breakwaters, marinas, etc. These initiatives must be informed and designed to guarantee the full preservation of marine ecosystems and the landscape, and also comply with the needs of other maritime activities such as fishing, aquaculture, tourism, and shipping. Accordingly, the project will follow a multi-level approach by operating at both the cross-border and the national scale and involving local stakeholders in partner regions. The cross-border cooperation is crucial to define and share a common strategy for the sustainable exploitation of marine renewable energy, taking into account environmental sensitivity, shipping routes and shared policies for tourism and fishing. Planning an integrated renewable energy system will represent an opportunity for blue growth in the Adriatic sea.
The project will adopt a participatory approach, gathering and involving Quadruple Helix actors in a multi-level network for the development of a common roadmap and the deployment of coastal blue energy systems in pilot areas. This network, formed by 1 Cross-border Coastal Energy Hub and Local Coastal Energy Hubs, will represent one of the main outputs of the project, together with a shared knowledge framework on blue energy potentials in the Adriatic coasts (considering also the regulatory, environmental and socio-economic context and including an online geodatabase) and a set of feasibility studies for reliable proposals of blue energy coastal plants. 
The Cross-border Coastal Energy Hub will also generate a joint Italian-Croatian Observatory on coastal blue energy systems, that will provide scientific and technical support to enterprises, public authorities and researchers, create a thematic international community and foster the creation of partnerships for the implementation of plants and research projects.
Unicam is in charge of the coordination of Work Package n. 5 (WP5): Preparing the capitalization and transferring of project results.

Ammontare totale del costo progetto: 1.827.670,00 €
Ammontare totale del finanziamento EU:  1.553.519,50 €
Quota Unicam (85% ERDF 235.960,00 €  / 15% MISE 41.640,00 € ):  Totale € 277.600,00