Research and innovation

A small company in Trieste is the technology partner in eight ongoing European consortia, having completed six more. Here is why, and what we do there.

Why we do research

Not for image, and not for the grants. We do research because it is how we build the products we will be selling in three years, and because it puts us in rooms we would not otherwise enter: universities, research institutes, port authorities and environmental agencies across eight countries.

The figures say it better than any statement. In 2025, revenue and income from research and innovation projects with environmental content came to €465,553, or 15.5% of production value, and salaries dedicated to research to €281,640, roughly 59% of total wages and salaries. (Source: 2025 Impact Report.)

⭐ And above all: almost everything we know how to do today with artificial intelligence and sensors comes from there. The image recognition model was born from a Horizon project on marine litter. The water monitoring platform came out of a regional project. The wildfire risk sensor was designed inside an Interreg project.

How we work

We bring the digital part. In the consortia we join, our piece is almost always the same: the platform that collects the data, the app that gets it collected in the field, the model that interprets it, the dashboard that makes it readable to whoever decides.

We prototype hardware when it is needed. The environmental sensor in the Karst Firewall project and the electronic nose are designed by us. We are not a manufacturer, but we can get to a working device.

We close the loop towards a product. It is the criterion we use to choose which calls to answer: if nothing sellable or reusable is left at the end, we do not go. acquamArIna is the example — project closed, now becoming a product.

Projects under way

Completed projects that left something behind: REMEDIES (2022-2025), source of the litter recognition model and the citizen science app · acquamArIna (2025), now becoming a product · Maelstrom, SeaClear2.0, RETRACKING, BoatBuster.

See all projects and updates →

The technologies we work on

Computer vision — recognition of objects in images collected in the field, with human validation and continuous retraining.

Models on sensor data — estimation of unmeasured parameters from measured ones, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance.

Retrieval-augmented generation — systems that answer questions about technical documentation while citing the source. The segmentation techniques we use come from 2024-2025 scientific literature.

Environmental sensing — design of devices for air, water and wildfire risk, with long-range low-power transmission.

Life cycle assessment — digital tools for calculating the environmental impact of products and processes.

Questions we get asked

What does a client get out of the fact that you do research?

Two concrete things. First, the expertise we bring to your projects is the same expertise we build inside the consortia, so you are not paying for it. Second, the products we sell you have a longer validation history behind them than a normal development cycle allows.

Can I take part in a project with you?

Yes, and it happens often: consortia look for real use cases. If you have a plant, a site or a process that fits, let’s talk — taking part in a European project is usually free or partly reimbursed for whoever provides the use case.

Are the results public?

Those funded by European programmes are, as a condition of the programme, and we publish them. The environmental data we collect is released under open licences.

Do you do contract research?

Yes. It is one of the ways we consult, and for projects that qualify for research and development incentives we prepare the technical documentation required.

See how we use artificial intelligence → · Go to sustainability and impact →