BSBF Webinar Miniseries: The future of Big Science facilities – Episode #1

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Astronomy tries to provide answers to some of mankind’s most basic questions: how did the Universe origin and how can we explain its fundamental physics? What is behind the formation of galaxies? Are we alone in the Universe? The key to providing answers to these enigmas are international scientific collaboration and ambitious international endeavours to build large astronomical observatories, as some BSBF2022 members can prove. ESO is currently building the Extremely Large Telescope, a revolutionary ground-based telescope that will be the largest visible and infrared light telescope in the world. The Square Kilometre Array Observatory, another member of BSBF2022, kicks of its construction this year with the objective of becoming the world’s largest radio telescope. ESA among other projects is involved in the James Webb Space Telescope, the next great space science observatory following Hubble. Other exciting projects such as CTAO in high energy physics and the EST in the field of solar astronomy are in different degrees of implementation.

In this webinar, featuring prominent speakers from ESA, ESO, SKAO, EST and CTAO, we take a step ahead and identify the technologies that will drive these and other organisations’ future projects, taking a look at their strategies for the future and their research and development programmes, and how industry can get involved.

Title: ” A look into the future of Big Science infrastructures. Episode 1: Strategic view, roadmaps and development programmes of astronomy research infrastructures ”

​Date: 6 October, 2021

Time: 09:30 – 12:00 CET

 

Read more here || Registration open here.

 

 

 

 

 

#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3 Episode 7 on industry access to facilities on the ISIS Neutron example

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Welcome to the recap of #ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3 Episode 7 on Applied & industrial vs fundamental science. We had the joy to hear from three speakers this time: Ed Mitchell, Head of Business Development Office at ESRF, Magnus Larsson, Head of Industrial Relations at MAXIV Laboratory and Graham Appleby, Business Development Manager at the UK’s ISIS Neutron and Muon Source.

Magnus spared no time and jumped in by giving an overview how industry could obtain open access to the synchrotron for free: the peer-reviewed access and proprietary access (see on video at 02:55). Magnus also outlines the Spring-8 model that was the basis for a hybrid solution between peer-reviewed and proprietary access and how this model would be modified for this hybrid solution.

Next up was Graham who moved away from theory and more into practice on how they are handling this in ISIS Neutron (see on video at 06:35). He follows up Magnus’ schema with examples ISIS sees why one or the other method is not working to grant beam time. The method ISIS Neutron uses at the moment is the Industrial Collaborative R&D. Graham elaborates that ISIS Neutron aims not to support industry access based on commercial gain/income for company but rather to focus on the economic impact of using neutrons. It’s a fine, but significant distinction.

The main ICRD progamme characteristics are:

  • Beamtime is free at point of use
  • Beamtime is obtained very quickly
  • Must demonstrate economic benefit to the UK
  • The company provides matching in-kind funding
  • The results remain confidential during experiment and data analysis
  • The company decides to publish results or to keep them confidential and purchase for the usage (this option remains for some time after the experiment).

Graham expands on these points at 08:24 in the video.

This programme at ISIS Neutron has resulted in 30 publications and 3 patents. See the general numbers at 11:49 in the video. Grahams conclusions show that out of 48 beam days per year there was £2 million of value created. One difficulty in following up was that often after some years the historical data is difficult to obtain by the companies. He also suggests that there should be dedicated staff to track outcomes. Although ISIS staff has co-authored many articles with big industry players such as Rolls-Royce, Unilever and more.

Graham is also happy to share an independent impact report by Technopolis Group forecasting that more than £500 million in savings or income has been gained by the participating companies and their supply chains.

See the discussion on topics such as if the company has to be UK based and how ISIS ranks the proposals from 17:10 in the video.

Read more on the #ENRIITCyourCoffee breaks on our dedicated page here.

SIOS Innovation Award 2021

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© SIOS

SIOS is launching its first Innovation Award, that aims to promote innovation in support of Earth system science in the Svalbard region.

The call is open to everyone who meets the eligibility criteria outlined in the call text. The proposed innovation must aim to solve a problem in Earth system science research or monitoring in Svalbard.

The winner of the award will be announced at the Svalbard Science Conference in Oslo, 2-3 November 2021. As part of this award SIOS is offering to match Early Career Researchers with a mentor for the SIOS community to help develop their idea. Refer to appendix 3 of the call text for details.

 

Deadline to apply: 10 September 2021!

Click here to fill in the form and submit your application.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking Beyond the Horizon

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© European Commission

This Advanced Technology Watch encompasses the whole spectrum of advanced technologies that are a priority for European industry policy. These technologies enable process, product and service innovation throughout the economy, thus fostering industrial modernisation.

As part of a series of analytical reports on advanced-technology trends, this report focuses on a new wave of emerging technologies that will accelerate industry modernisation and the overall process of digital transformation across organisations and businesses in Europe.

The qualitative and quantitative analysis included in this Advanced Technology Watch is specifically designed to provide novel insight and up-to-date content to technology users across the whole spectrum of European industries, with the aim of revealing potential opportunities emerging from the most recent applications of advanced technologies.

Read more and download the complete document here

 

 

 

 

 

#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3: Episode 8 “Improving opportunities of collaboration between industry and academy – from innovation mall to innovation partnership”

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The last episode before we go on summer break was on the topic of innovation mall and innovation partnership from the perspective of improving industry-academy collaboration. The session was led by Antonio Bonucci, who is responsible of European XFEL Industrial Liaison Office and in-kind contribution supply chain manager. He is also actively involved in EU funded projects ATTRACT and LEAPS-INNOV and in the organisation committee of Big Science Business Forum.

Antonio Bonucci started with a presentation and included a great model by Roberto Verganti outlining the four ways to collaborate. You can read more on the model here but Antonio continued with the example of an Innovation Mall, which according to Verganti’s model is an open hierarchical manner of collaborating.

Watch Antonio’s short demo of partnership call sites like the Enterprise Europe Network and Innocentive at 05:40 in the video, which are great examples of an Innovation Mall. Antonio concludes that when setting up an Innovation Mall one has to compromise between the open and closed features. Antonio elaborates on the pros and cons of each parameter and the ‘gray zones’ at 08:25 of the video.

Next up was Marco Peloi, Head of Industrial Liaison Office (ILO) at Elettra Sincrotrone in Trieste, who elaborated the legal procedure and why it is important to be interested in the procedure of a supplier. One of the good points he made was that in technology transfer it’s not only important to have the product, but also competency transfer is an important process not to be overlooked. Even further, from 13:30 Marco outlines how to have the procurement process and the development process running simultaneously.

Watch the Q&A with Marco and Antonio from 20:54 in the video.

Our Season 4 is kicking off again in September 2021. Stay tuned on the #ENRIITCyourCoffee page here and contact us if you have an interesting topic you want to share with our network.

New report shows open data is at the heart of innovation

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© ELIXIR 

Open access life science resources such as data and software, are fundamental for breakthrough discoveries, scientific excellence and entrepreneurial endeavours. Seventy-six percent of companies surveyed in our newest report “Open data: a driving force for innovation in the life sciences” state that their product or service would not exist without data on open repositories.

The results of this survey show that open data is fundamental for innovation in the life sciences. Hanz Garritzen, Vice President of Sales at Finnish SME Medisapiens puts this plainly: “Without open data resources, large companies, such as pharmaceuticals, would be hampered in their work but would not cease to exist. In contrast, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the startups, would be severely impacted as in many cases their business models are dependent on the availability of open data resources”. Not only this, but our survey shows that the real value of open data lies not only in accessing one database but in combining multiple open data repositories.

Aside from looking at the digital foundations for these companies, the report also looks toward the physical ecosystems that nurture new SMEs. Close proximity to customers, large pools of highly qualified graduates, and existing infrastructures all make for attractive environments for SMEs to set up shop. This report casts a spotlight on the largest European Innovation Ecosystems: Cambridge, UK; Berlin, Germany; and Barcelona, Spain and dissects the key factors in their success at attracting entrepreneurs.

Read more here.

 

 

 

 

 

New ESO observations show rocky exoplanet has just half the mass of Venus

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© ESO

A team of astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile to shed new light on planets around a nearby star, L 98-59, that resemble those in the inner Solar System. Amongst the findings are a planet with half the mass of Venus — the lightest exoplanet ever to be measured using the radial velocity technique — an ocean world, and a possible planet in the habitable zone.

“The planet in the habitable zone may have an atmosphere that could protect and support life,” says María Rosa Zapatero Osorio, an astronomer at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, and one of the authors of the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The results are an important step in the quest to find life on Earth-sized planets outside the Solar System. The detection of biosignatures on an exoplanet depends on the ability to study its atmosphere, but current telescopes are not large enough to achieve the resolution needed to do this for small, rocky planets. The newly studied planetary system, called L 98-59 after its star, is an attractive target for future observations of exoplanet atmospheres. Its orbits a star only 35 light-years away and has now been found to host rocky planets, like Earth or Venus, which are close enough to the star to be warm.

With the contribution of ESO’s VLT, the team was able to infer that three of the planets may contain water in their interiors or atmospheres. The two planets closest to the star in the L 98-59 system are probably dry, but might have small amounts of water, while up to 30% of the third planet’s mass could be water, making it an ocean world.

Furthermore, the team found “hidden” exoplanets that had not previously been spotted in this planetary system. They discovered a fourth planet and suspect there is a fifth, in a zone at the right distance from the star for liquid water to exist on its surface. “We have hints of the presence of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of this system,” explains Olivier Demangeon, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, University of Porto in Portugal and lead author of the new study.

Read more here.

 

 

 

 

 

1st Open Call for Use-cases in 4 Industrial Domains: Energy, Security, Health, Agriculture

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© Ai4Copernicus

  • Beneficiaries: Consortia of high-tech & at least 1 low-tech SME
  • Total available EU funding: €900.000
  • Max funding per project: up to €150.000 (3-partner consortia), up to € 120.000€ (2-partner consortia)

WHAT ACTIVITIES WILL BE SUPPORTED?

Developing and testing AI technical solutions that address industrial challenges by exploiting AI resources and Earth Observation Data focusing only on:  4 industrial domains (energy, security, health, agriculture)

  • Prototypes: TRL5 AI prototypes
  • Type of beneficiaries:  SMEs, startups, spin-offs, high-tech & low-tech companies
  • Dates:  1st open call Q2 2021 (Jun- Sept)

Submission Deadline: 30th September 2021

Selection: Nov/Dec 2021

Projects Acceleration: Jan 2022 – April 2023

  • Verticals: Energy, Security, Health, Agriculture

Click here to learn more and to apply

 

ESFRI Days 2021

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© ESFRI

The Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) are pleased to announce ESFRI Days, an event scheduled to take place from 6 to 8 December 2021 at the Grand Hotel Union, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

ESFRI Days will feature two major events, complemented by the 78th ESFRI plenary meeting (for ESFRI National Delegates only, 6-7 December):

  • ESFRI Roadmap 2021 Launch, 7 December 2021
  • 1st ESFRI Stakeholders Forum Meetup, 8 December 2021

​For more information,  please visit the event webpages:

– 78th ESFRI Forum Plenary
– Roadmap 2021 Launch
– 1st ESFRI Stakeholders Forum Meetup

 

 

Best of #ENRIITCyourCoffee: our network’s point of view

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We recently concluded our ‘Best of #ENRIITCyourCoffee’ series, which aimed to take you on a journey through the highlights of the #ENRIITCyourCoffee series from the past three seasons. We hope that the highlights gave you a chance to revisit the most exciting moments, reflect on the discussions and look at how our network has grown and developed over the past 18 months.

Before diving into the details, we thought it would be good to give a quick overview of ENRIITC for those who are less familiar with the project.

ENRIITC Project overview

ENRIITC is the European Network of Research Infrastructure and Industry for collaboration. It’s a project founded by HORIZON 2020 and it brings together 11 partners from 7 different countries and more than 60 Associates throughout Europe.

Starting in January 2020, the 3-year project aims to build a permanent pan-European network of ILOs and ICOs (Industrial Liaison and Contact Officers) and enable industry to become a full partner of research infrastructures, supporting the establishment of strategic partnerships between them.

In order to better reach the project goals and to properly build and maintain a stable community, ENRIITC has been carrying out several activities.  One of these activities is #ENRIITCyourCoffee (launched on 17 November 2020), which is a weekly, 30-minute webinar series that allows people to join together virtually to the ENRIITC network, in order to learn, collaborate and stay connected. The weekly episode begins with a short presentation on a topic, followed by an open discussion with an interactive Q&A session. Within Season 3, we reached an audience of 50 participants in multiple episodes!

So, what’s the purpose of the Best of #ENRIITCyourCoffee?

There are many reasons why we decided to launch our ‘Best of’ series. Here are just a few:

  • To give members of our community a quick recap of the seasons! Besides our faithful members who keep coming back, we often welcomed new participants throughout the 3 seasons. These individuals might have missed the previous episodes. With the ‘Best of’ series, everyone is given the opportunity to meet our speakers, discover each of the topics and listen into the highlights of the discussions!
  • To keep moving forward! We have come a long way, but we are keen to move even further. It’s exciting to see where we started with Season 1 and how much we have grown with Season 3. We believe this a testament to the effort from the partners and Associates, as well as the ever-increasing engagement of the ENRIITC community.
  • To collect feedback from the Network! Once the ‘Best of’ videos were published, a few polls were launched on LinkedIn and Twitter with the aim of involving the network and collecting direct feedback/opinions.
  • To share the outcomes! All the outcomes have been collected, analysed and firstly shared in #ENRIITCyourNetwork, our LinkedIn private group dedicated to the members of the ENRIITC project that will remain as a permanent platform to facilitate data and best practices exchanges, knowledge transfer and much more within the community.

What are the results?

We posted a number of polls related to specific topics to our community. For some of them, it’s clear that a shared thought exists already, while for others further interpretations and discussions are needed in order to determine a common strategy which could be applied and extended at a European level. Below is a quick summary from the polls on ENRIITC Twitter and LinkedIn profiles:

Concerning the first step that should be taken in order to improve the relations between Research Infrastructure and Industry, the highest rated one was “To develop a scheme where ICO should operate”. Therefore, even if the options “to provide valid reasons for RIs to invest more” (25%) and “to promote the landscape by highlighting the real opportunities” (15%) are both important in a hypothetical action plan, the majority of the ENRIITC Community (60%) considered the first as a priority. Does this mean that a common strategy together with a defined “operational guide” will be essential in order to reach this goal?

In the previous poll, the common thoughts of our network was clear. However, when it comes to E-platforms for procurement, the poll would suggest that there is no agreed solution yet. Even though there was a slight preference for “Joint e-platform for procurement which should be created directly from Big Science Research Infrastructures” (40%), choosing if common procurement code is more or less important than to Joint e-platforms (in order to increase benefits and decrease the present barriers), it’s still hard to define. Is it possible in the future to find a shared solution or there will always be gaps and different perspectives about this topic?

About the ICO role, a question concerning the “must have skills” for this role has been proposed to our network and, by analysing the feedback collected, the outcome looks quite interesting. Actually, it seems that rather than “Having a PhD in Science” (which got 0 preferences) or “Holding an MBA” (which only received 10% of the responses), the ENRIITC community seems equally divided between two essential skills that an ICO should develop and improve in order to properly represent the RIs and build a constructive cooperation with the related industries: “To have strong networking skills” and “To understand Industry needs”.

If from one side, this aspect is evident, from the other one (more over from the Research Infrastructures perspective), a scientific or technological background is still, in some ways, mandatory when it comes to an ICO recruitment process. However, it should be kept in mind that knowledge and preparation itself do not grant a successful daily operation if they do not match with the soft skills needed.

In light of Research Infrastructures, we are becoming more familiar with the concept of Technology Infrastructures, which according to the EU Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/technology-infrastructures_en), are “facilities, equipment, capabilities and support services where industrial players can find support to commercialise new products, processes and services, in full compliance with EU regulations”. These technology infrastructures require high investment both in setting-up and keeping up with the state-of-the- art. Analysis shows large regional differences in terms of financial support, fragmentation, risk of duplication and transnational accessibility difficulties.

Therefore, in order to help Europe’s industrial sector, succeed on a local and global level, would it be beneficial to try to map all the EU Technology Infrastructures? If we look at the graph, which has been created starting from the poll’s result, the opinion of the ENRIITC Community is free from doubt: even though a small percentage consider this a not valuable action because Tech Infra in the EU are too many or, in case it’s done, not applicable to SMEs, the mapping realised by sector seems to be the most advantageous. Maybe because it would enable Industries to check those ones related to their domain/work environment, or even because it would be easier to classify and locate them among the wide European scenario. A couple of our members also raised a fourth possible action, which is  “to map the knowledge and the technology, rather than the infrastructures itself“. Would this be an option?

Research Infrastructures, Industries and their main players are certainly our main focus, but what about Open Data Resources and Databases? More transparency and control, together with less restrictions and barriers, to have the possibility to use, re-use and redistribute data in a freeway, became a real necessity. For what refers to Science, Research and Innovation, as well as other work environments, “how can companies better grow their business and be successful”? According to the ENRIITC community, “to access all available databases” doesn’t seem to be an option, while acting towards a “pre-selection of specific databases’ ‘, could actually help to reach the final goal. However, 75% of the participants identified as key to success the possibility of exchanging data resources” between them.

Conclusions

It is important to emphasise the point that these results can not necessarily be considered totally extendable and applicable to each RIs, industry or player in the European landscape. However, the data we collected does serve as a starting point for further discussions and development. Our community is quite active in terms of exchanging best practices, advice and solutions which could positively improve the cooperation between them, either they are ICOs, ILOs, Innovation project leaders or Institution representatives. A lot has been done so far and, even if the “to-do” list is still long and more actions are needed, there is one main steady concept which describes ENRIITC values and mission as its best: #TogetherToImprove.