The news was published in the institution’s February–March issue to inform the academic community about the work being carried out together with L’Institut Pascal and their contribution and expertise within the European project Soil&WineResidues.
Between 21 and 23 January 2026, the Soil&WineResidues consortium travelled to Clermont-Ferrand, home of partner Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), to hold the project’s second in-person consortium meeting and review the current status and progress of the initiative.
The MEDIS Laboratory (Microbiology, Digestive Environment and Health), linked to the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA), highlighted this meeting in its February–March bi-monthly newsletter in order to present its participation in the European project to the academic community. L’Institut Pascal, another research centre associated with the UCA Polytechnic School, is also collaborating in the project.
Both laboratories are contributing their expertise to the ECOLAB pilot of Soil&WineResidues, which focuses on the valorisation of wine-sector residues with potential pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications. UCA’s research activities are being carried out collaboratively with the rest of the Soil&WineResidues partners to explore new possibilities for transforming by-products such as grape pomace into high added-value materials.
Following the consortium meeting, Emmanuelle Lainé, Associate Professor at UCA, guided a visit through the MEDIS facilities so that participants could see first-hand the progress related to the development of tablets, hydrogels and polymeric membranes obtained from lignocellulosic residues collected in the experimental area of O Salnés (Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain).
Boosting the circular economy
Even with these first samples, Soil&WineResidues highlights the potential of circular economy approaches applied to the wine sector and the strong possibilities these biomaterials offer for creating natural functional products in areas such as health, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.