On 21 October 2025, the POSEIDON project marked a major milestone with its first cross-European Communities of Practice (CoP) webinar, bringing together stakeholders from Valencia, Spain and Thessaloniki, Greece. This collaborative event showcased the project’s commitment to fostering innovation and sustainable maritime solutions through community-driven dialogue.
What is a Community of Practice?
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of individuals from diverse backgrounds who share a common concern or interest and collaborate to achieve both individual and common goals. In international projects like POSEIDON, CoPs play a vital role in navigating technological transitions, aligning stakeholder interests, and shaping new value chains.
POSEIDON’s CoP Mission
The POSEIDON project aims to implement local value chains based on e-methanol as a clean fuel for shipping. CoPs in Valencia and Thessaloniki are central to this mission, enabling local engagement, feedback collection, and roadmap development for post-project implementation.
Webinar highlights:
Project partners ThPA S.A. – Port of Thessaloniki, Fundación Valenciaport, EIFER – European Institute for Energy Research, RINA, and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) presented updates on the project’s progress and outlined next steps. The discussions explored the technical, environmental, and regulatory challenges and opportunities involved in integrating e-methanol into maritime operations. These insights helped participants gain a clearer understanding of the actions required to establish e-methanol as a viable alternative fuel.
The session also featured presentations of case study scenarios from Thessaloniki and Valencia, which sparked thoughtful feedback and reflections from attendees. These scenarios will be evaluated in the coming months from different perspectives (technical, economic, social, environmental) and compared with one another. This will provide a deeper understanding of the impacts of implementing new value chains that support alternative fuels in shipping.
This first cross-European CoP webinar not only strengthened the connection between the two regional communities but also laid a solid foundation for future cooperation and innovation in sustainable shipping.
