INTEC and the French Embassy in the DR sign an agreement to develop an agricultural waste and sargassum management project
El Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo has led several investigations on sargassum, aimed at identifying its opportunities, prevention and reduction of harmful effects
SANTO DOMINGO. - EThe French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the French Embassy in the Dominican Republic, as well as the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) formalized un grant agreement for project “French-Dominican cooperation in the management of agricultural waste and sargassum”.
The agreement that was signed by the rector of INTEC, Julio Sanchez Marinez, and Eric Fournier, French ambassador to the Dominican Republic, raises among its objectives the promotion of exchanges between universities and companies on the management of agricultural waste and sargassum; training actors in tourism and agriculture in the Dominican Republic and promoting new research and development projects in waste and sargassum management.
To achieve these objectives, INTEC receives a subsidy of 100,000.00 euros from the French government.
After signing the agreement, Ambassador Fournier said that he is proud to collaborate with such an important project that seeks to find a solution to a regional problem such as the arrival of sargassum. On his side, rector Sánchez Maríñez, highlighted that INTEC as an academy has led local research projects regarding sargassum, and emphasized that the union of INTEC with other academies in the French-speaking Caribbean will have a great impact. He also mentioned that it was the university's first international alliance on this topic.
The project, which will conclude in July 2025, is developed with French partners: the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Rouen, the University of the Antilles, the Phytobokaz Laboratory of Guadeloupe, among others. The Dominican partners are the University Research Network on Sargassum, the Organic Bananas Association of the Northwest Line (BANELINO) and the Ministry of Agriculture.
As part of the project, conferences will be organized to share best practices, specialist work missions, diploma courses in sargassum management and workshops on the recovery of agricultural waste and sargassum. Likewise, new research and development pilot projects will be proposed with potential financing from European and Caribbean funds.
The final beneficiaries of this agreement are multiple: the government authorities and specialists of the Dominican Republic, farmers and actors in the agricultural sector, especially BANELINO, actors in the tourism sector, Dominican academic institutions and private companies involved in the management of agricultural waste and sargassum. .
Complementary to different projects carried out on this topic by national and international organizations, the project “Franco-Dominican cooperation in the management of agricultural waste and sargassum” is coherent with the French international initiative to combat sargassum launched in Dubai, in parallel to the COP 28 and with the objectives of the third United Nations conference organized with Costa Rica in Nice, France, in June 2025, to achieve a "Pact for the Ocean" as ambitious as possible.
INTEC, leads research on sargassum
INTEC has several research projects on sargassum in development, aimed at identifying its opportunities, prevention and reduction of harmful effects, which are developed from a Sargassum Research Roundtable, which brings together researchers from basic sciences, health, economics and business. , engineering and humanities.