Green-it Researcher Juan Ignacio Vílchez wins InnOValley Proof of Concept Award

Project focused on a microbial formulation to restore soil health and protect plants from salt stress will now be further developed and translated.

Green-it member and ITQB NOVA researcher Juan Ignacio Vílchez had his project awarded at the fourth edition of the InnoValley Proof of Concept Fund, alongside three other projects from ITQB NOVA. Each selected project receives 50 000€ to further develop their proposal and accelerate their market entry over 12 months.

The winning project – “SaltShield: Halo-extremophile bioinoculants to reclaim agricultural saline soils” – looks to develop and validate, under greenhouse and field microplot conditions, a native two-strain consortium (Vreelandella sp. nov. + Vreelandella titanicae) formulated as an ambient-stable powder that improves crop performance under saline soils, enabling a cost-effective alternative to conventional practice. In the future, the team looks to accelerate deployment based on field evidence, as well as expand to perennial crops and synergies with soil amendments where valuable, and pre-industrial scale-up with manufacturing transfer and country-by-country registration. This project counts with Hubel Verde, Asfertglobal and IDEAGRO as industrial partners.

“Securing this award lets us move our science forward into products. My focus is a farm-wide, efficient answer to salinity—easy to handle and adopt. This support helps us prove it in the field and move it forward with the right partners”, explains Juan Ignacio Vílchez.

The InnOValley Proof of Concept Fund is an initiative of the Oeiras Municipality within the scope of the Oeiras Science and Technology Strategy, in partnership with institutes within the Oeiras scientific ecosystem. In 2025, the program has strengthened its reach with the addition of two new strategic partners: INIAV – National Institute of Agricultural and Veterinary Research and NIMSB – NOVA Institute for Medical Systems Biology, both based in Oeiras. Projects were awarded on September 29^th, as part of the BIOMEET 2025, the annual meeting of the Portuguese Biotechnology sector taking place at the Taguspark Conference Centre in Oeiras, from September 29 – 30.