Besòs Coast Sustainable Territory, a regional specialisation and competitiveness project (PECT) led and coordinated by the Sant Adrià de Besòs town council in collaboration with the Badalona Town Council, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Besòs Consortium, and with the support of the b_TEC Campus Diagonal-Besòs Foundation, is part of the new Horizon 2020 policy of the EU within the Research and Innovation Strategy for the Smart Specialisation of Catalonia (RIS3CAT), which promotes the socio-economic development of territories and supports innovative projects.
The objective of the Besòs Coast Sustainable Territory project is to convert the area of Sant Adrià de Besòs and Badalona into a hub of economic activity, applied technological research, knowledge concentration and social innovation around environmental sustainability, with the ability to generate projects and to attract research, companies and new investments. It also aims to improve the environmental quality and therefore the quality of life of citizens, to transform the left bank of the River Besòs and part of the seafront, and to increase the employability of the people of Sant Adrià and Badalona.

The grant will be allocated to the following projects:

• The coordination of the PECT led by the Sant Adrià de Besòs Town Council (management, monitoring, presentation and representation of the project, economic control, evaluation, etc.).
• Research for sustainability to identify talent in the field of sustainability and make it available to the area. The objective is to gain specific knowledge of the regional challenges regarding sustainability and to create a hub to attract new economic and business activity with pilot actions on the application of ICT in this field. This operation includes various actions related to environmental quality on the Besòs coastline, monitoring of the water quality in the River Besòs, and sustainable water groundwater management solutions.
• Sustainable management of the water cycle. A pilot intervention for environmental improvement and sustainability in the whole water ecosystem of the area (the river, the aquifer, wastewater, surface water and coastal quality) will be carried out. It will monitor the coastal model and manage groundwater.
• Ecomeasures. A monitoring, control and infrastructure system will be developed and implemented to reduce use of drinking water for irrigation and auxiliary work and to reduce the CO2 emissions associated with the energy consumption resulting from this reuse of water.
• Energy talent. An intelligent micro-network model will be developed to improve energy efficiency in electricity generation and distribution, to operate as an alternative to the traditional system, and to reinforce the specialisation of the PECT area in measures for sustainability.