POSIDON PCP honoured at the European Innovation Procurement Awards
The European project POSIDON PCP (POlluted SIte DecontaminatiON Pre-Commercial Procurement) recently secured the prestigious second place in the “Innovation Procurement Initiative” category at the 2025 European Innovation Procurement Awards, presented by the European Commission.
The POSIDON pre-commercial procurement, led by the Port System Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea in Trieste, represents a significant and pioneering example of public procurement with tangible impact. Area Science Park played a central role in coordinating the project and its technical-scientific activities related to the procurement procedure for developing innovative decontamination solutions for two complex industrial areas: the Noghere site in Trieste and the Zorrotzaurre peninsula in Bilbao, the latter at the heart of an ambitious urban regeneration plan designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Acting on behalf of the Municipality of Bilbao and three other key contractors—SPAQUE (Belgium), CEA–City Council of Vitoria Gasteiz (Spain), and Baía do Tejo (Portugal)—the Port Authority of Trieste, supported by project partner and innovation procurement expert Sara Bedin, acquired innovative research and development services through a pre-commercial public procurement. The focus was on in situ soil decontamination at sites heavily contaminated by hydrocarbons and heavy metals.
“POSIDON, characterised from its inception as a highly innovative project, is a concrete example of transferring research outcomes to the market with the goal of addressing real needs, such as developing and field-testing innovative technologies for the decontamination of soils in polluted industrial areas,” comments Caterina Petrillo, President of Area Science Park. “The effective collaboration among diverse stakeholders, the scouting of technological and innovative solutions in research laboratories, and the use of pre-commercial public procurement have been key ingredients in the project’s success, making it a European benchmark”.
By initiating a competitive process from the earliest stages—conceptual design, initial development, through to large-scale field tests—POSIDON enabled the emergence of new in situ technologies that not only surpass the current state of the art (and have indeed been patented), but are also market-ready or prepared for wide commercial dissemination. In particular, the solutions selected for the field trial phase have demonstrated promising results.
The Soil-Omic solution using BIOflushing® technology, already on the market, is an advanced protocol combining biological and physico-chemical treatments, integrating metagenomics with environmental engineering to decontaminate soils and aquifers from organic and inorganic pollutants. Developed by TESECO, BIOflushing utilises specialised hydraulic plants and systems for biostimulation, bio-amplification, and chemical washing of saturated and unsaturated soils. Results have confirmed the effectiveness of the process and dedicated plant in degrading petroleum and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, as well as removing heavy metals from both saturated and unsaturated soils.
Erase, developed by the consortium led by HCP ITALIA, is a modular patented solution currently in final refinement and pre-market development, which reduces organic and inorganic pollutants via electrodes and injections.
POSIDON has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 776838. The content of this press release reflects only the authors’ view, and the European Research Executive Agency (REA) is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.