A tantalising glimpse into post-pandemic life last week as Transfiere, Spain’s biggest professional and multi-sectoral forum for knowledge and technology, was given the green light to be held in-person. Over 2,000 professionals attended the Forum in Málaga, Spain, on 14 and 15 April, among whom the LifeWatch ERIC Common Facility in Spain and LifeWatch Spain Node, who also participated in the event.
That the annual Forum was allowed to go ahead (with strict health and safety measures in place) confirms its status as one of the most valuable intellectual exchanges on technology transfer and innovation for research ecosystems in Southern Europe.
Staying true to form, the organisers behind Transfiere made it possible to check in to more than 3,000 meetings with potential partners, among which some 30 universities and research institutions. Many important bilateral meetings and presentations were organised, one such being the table on the Circular Economy, taking place on Wednesday 14 April in the Innovation Room, where LifeWatch ERIC’s Chief Technical Officer, Juan Miguel González-Aranda, was invited to speak alongside other eminent participants such as representatives of Airbus, Mercadona, CDTI and several Innovation Technology Parks.
Meanwhile, at LifeWatch ERIC’s own dedicated exhibition booth, the ERDF Andalusia programme presented by staff was met with keen interest by the hundreds of visitors to the stand. During such institutional visits and working meetings at the booth, LifeWatch ERIC staff were of course only too happy to reply to the inundation of questions and requests received, highlighting LifeWatch ERIC’s increasingly salient profile in the research sector.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/lifewatch-article_website.jpeg9941976Chiara Facoettihttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngChiara Facoetti2021-04-27 15:33:282021-04-28 08:21:01Science, Technology and Innovation: Transfiere2021
This first Horizon Europe strategic plan defines the strategic orientations for our research and innovation investments over the period 2021-2024 and acts as a compass to stay on course with the political priorities of the Commission, with a focus on a climate-neutral and green Europe, fit for the digital age, where the economy works for the people.
The aim is to ensure an effective interface between EU policy priorities, and programme activities and ultimately, the research and innovation projects funded by Horizon Europe.
This will stimulate research and innovation investments where they are needed and, most importantly, deliver results. Horizon Europe will approach the twin transitions towards a green and digital recovery in an ambitious manner and will commit sizeable financial efforts to support the green and digital transformations.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/he.png252270Chiara Facoettihttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngChiara Facoetti2021-04-22 20:57:472021-04-22 21:01:58Horizon Europe: European Commission publishes new strategic plan
The CLARIN Annual Conference is the main annual event for those working on the construction and operation of CLARIN across Europe, as well as for representatives of the communities of use in the humanities, and social sciences.
Due to the corona dynamics the 2021 edition of the CLARIN Annual Conference (CLARIN2021) will once again go virtual. Based on the experience and feedback of 2020, this virtual edition will aim to provide all attendants with an attractive virtual event and optimal interaction opportunities.
CLARIN is counting on the support of the participants in turning the event into a success despite the format shift. Closer to the date we will be able to offer more details on the programme and the registration procedure.
The deadline for the call for abstracts for CLARIN2021 has been extended. You are invited to submit your proposals until 28 April 2021.
In case you are a teacher, lecturer or a trainer in the CLARIN network, please check the special call for submissions “Teaching CLARIN in Times of Corona”, and keep in mind that three of those submissions will be selected for the Teaching CLARIN Award. The winners will be announced at the conference.
The global demand for energy and environmental sustainability represent critical challenges of this century. Photocatalysis and electrocatalysis are key processes to drive and accelerate the production of fuels, to reduce gas emission and produce renewable energy sources. Water splitting is a crucial reaction with remarkable energy applications. Water can, in fact, be split in its constituents, oxygen and hydrogen, through fundamental photocatalytic and electrocatalytic reactions, such as hydrogen evolution (HER) and oxygen evolution (OER) reactions.
Both academia and industry showed a great interest in the possibility to develop and study new materials to boost overall energy production and enable effective energy storage, as green hydrogen through photocatalysis and electrochemistry.
In a research work, coordinated by Professor Antonio Politano from the University of L’Aquila, the oxidation of nanosheets of gallium selenide (GaSe) and indium selenide (InSe) was tested by both experiments and theory, with relevant innovative features. In fact, their exfoliation in atomically thin layers enhances their performances in electrochemistry and photocatalysis. Experiments showed that the increase in performance is not originated by an increase in the surface-to-volume ratio, but rather to the formation of a thin oxide skin, which represent the catalytically active interface.
Among the experimental techniques employed in this research work, there’s the Low-Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM), available at the Nanospectroscopy beamline of the Italian CERIC partner facility in Trieste, the Elettra synchrotron.
This episode of #ENRIITCyourCoffee took us as close to the industry conveyer belt, as our virtual coffee breaks allow. Frida Tibblin-Citron, Business Developer at Big Science Sweden introduced us to Leif Gjerlöv Jensen, Technical Sales Engineer at AB Carlsson & Möller and we were able to pick his brain on what is it like to be a player at the Big Science table.
The session started with a presentation from Frida on Big Science Sweden, which is a Swedish Industrial Liaison Officer organisation. Big Science Sweden is a consortium, consisting of different universities and institutes in Sweden and they also hold a weekly meeting – The Business Corner. The Business Corner is a meeting place and procurement opportunity sharing place for network suppliers. It seems that short weekly get-togethers are the key to success in the ILO-ICO cooperation.
Leif presented AB Carlsson & Möller next. In a nutshell, he characterised the company as follows:
“If you Google something and can’t find it, then we will make it.”
AB Carlsson & Möller was founded in 1948, which Leif refers as “not a very old company but not a new one either”. They focus on engineering plastics and components with the temperature range of + 250 to -180 Celsius; low and high friction; radiation resistant materials, magnetic materials, electric and thermal isolation and conductive materials and various composite plastic with fillers like steel, ceramic, boron, bronze and many more. Check out AB Carlsson & Möller website here and get in contact with Leif via lg@c-m.se.
Leif emphasised how important it is to keep up with the Big Science scene. Carlsson & Möller’s jump to Big Science started in 2017 at the IPAC exhibition in Copenhagen where they made connections all over the world. Carlsson & Möller decided to focus on Europe, while there was interest from all corners of the world. “We’re a small company of 75 people, and we are production company – we’re not buying from other countries, we produce all our products ourselves.” Although, cooperation and being international is still ingrained in Carlsson & Möller activities. Their Swedish customers also have partners in various countries, so Carlsson & Möller helps facilitate those relationships as well.
Leif believes in added value for the customer and production innovation.
“Sometimes the price for the delivery, measurement report and documentation is higher than the product’s because it is so important that the size is correct and the surfaces are correct.”
Although, it’s not easy to be a supplier for Big Science facilities such as one of their regular customers the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). A supplier must have a stable yet flexible production. A supplier must understand and deliver what the customer needs.
After Leif’s presentation, Frida was eager to ask her questions on what makes Carlsson & Möller the success story of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for Big Science. Here Leif could not stress enough: being visible and showing ones capabilities. He urges to be open minded towards innovation and overall towards international relationships: “You must be innovative because business is not coming to you while you’re sitting back in the office. You have to do something special. Part of the success is to show you want to do this.” This sentiment also echoed in the reply to the next question from Claudia Alen Amaro (Senior Project Manager at Instruct-ERIC). Claudia asked how they reach such Research Infrastructures (RIs) that are not as centralised as CERN, but rather like her home institution Instruct-ERIC, which is spread out across Europe. Leif assured us that being visible is the key.
Jorge Lopez from CDTI in Spain dove right in the core of the work process with such big facilities like CERN: does the customer tell you exactly the size/shape/material their bit needs be or does the customer tell you how they want to use the bit and does Carlsson & Möller then figure out the exact details? Leif lifted the veil of the complex work they do and confirmed that they get the broad wish from the customer and then do the calculations and measurements themselves. This is partly why they need such large engineering power.
As usual for our coffee discussions, the topic reverted to the hard questions: costs. Alan Silverman, United Kingdom ILO representative at CERN asked how to deal with the overhead costs. Leif’s answer to this and other questions about 3D printing, reverse engineering can be viewed from the video below.
We welcome you back next week and until then stay safe and innovate!
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EYCS3E2v2.png5881373Piret Pajulahttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngPiret Pajula2021-04-16 14:03:322021-08-26 09:18:36#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3: Episode 2 – “Everyday life for a Big Science Supplier”
The European Union is supporting the development of a pan-European network of Industrial Liaison and Contact Officers (ILOs/ICOs) across research infrastructures (RIs) via the ENRIITC project and, this call, will support pilot events for research infrastructures to engage with industry and using the ENRIITC training programme for such events as a basis.
If you meet all the criteria , just click here to download the application form and don’t hesitate to send us your event proposal!
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ENRIITCyourIndustryOutreach.png466824Chiara Facoettihttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngChiara Facoetti2021-04-09 21:47:362021-04-13 09:50:19ENRIITC your Industry Outreach
Danny Duggal, Vice President, Commercial and Communications at Proact IT Group AB. Image owned byBSS
Proact IT Sweden, beside being member company of Big Science Sweden , is Europe’s leading independent data centre and cloud service provider. The company has now entered into a comprehensive framework agreement with OCRE (Open Clouds for Research Environments).
Proact will now be able to help the European research community accelerate cloud adoption. Within the agreement, customers may make use of Proact’s infrastructure services and related professional services, such as consultancy, implementation and optimisation.
Members of SUNET, e.g. ESS, MAX IV and EISCAT, are some of the organisations that will be able to buy IT cloud services from a Swedish partner, making it easier to comply with Swedish legislation.
“We are, of course, delighted to be selected as a potential cloud partner at a time when the research and education sectors are looking to accelerate cloud adoption, but still need to adhere to local regulations relating to data location and data sovereignty,” says Danny Duggal, Vice President, Commercial and Communications at Proact IT Group AB.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/proact.jpg7881400Chiara Facoettihttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngChiara Facoetti2021-04-09 17:04:272021-04-12 17:02:31Proact IT Sweden to provide IT Infrastructure Services to Research Facilities
The scientific collaboration EHT Event Horizon Telescope, which published the first image of a black hole in 2019, has now managed to produce a new representation of the huge astrophysical object at the centre of galaxy M87: this is the image of the black hole in polarized light.
This is the first measurement of the polarization of light – a phenomenon that indicates the presence of magnetic fields – in a region that lies practically on the “edge” of a black hole, on the so-called event horizon. The result makes a fundamental contribution to explaining how the M87 galaxy emits energetic jets of particles from its core.
The study provides valuable information that will help us understand the behavior of the magnetic fields around black holes and the processes that, in these very dense regions of space, are able to produce jets so powerful that they extend far beyond the galaxy itself.
Thanks to the new observations, the EHT collaboration has understood that only theoretical models with strongly magnetized gasses can explain what is seen on the black hole’s event horizon. The data indicate that the magnetic fields at the edge of the black hole are strong enough to repel the hot gas and help it resist gravity, leaving only part of the gas to spiral inwards to the event horizon.
To observe the heart of the M87 galaxy, the collaboration linked eight telescopes around the world to create a virtual Earth-sized telescope, the Event Horizon Telescope. The results were published in two separate articles in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by the EHT collaboration.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/black-hole.jpeg9781760Chiara Facoettihttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngChiara Facoetti2021-04-09 16:29:052021-04-12 17:00:02The First Image of Magnetic Fields at the Edge of a Black Hole
Welcome to the recap of the #ENRIITCyourCoffee first episode of the third season with Ilaria Nardello, Research Associate at Stazione Zoologica Napoli (SZN) and Katharina Lauer, Industry officer at ELIXIR. The season three inaugural topic was Open Data Resources.
As a tradition we gathered at 15.00 CET with our coffee mugs and Katharina started off with a short presentation on ELIXIR and its model on Open Data. She posed the central question that is familiar to many research infrastructures (RIs) – where do public infrastructures position themselves in the whole innovation ecosystem? ELIXIR has 23 nodes and they are all coordinated from a hub, which is based in Cambridge, UK. ELIXIR focuses on data topics in the life science sector: databases, software, tools, training, etc. When it comes to industry relationships, ELIXIR aims for the nodes to have good connections with their local innovation, ecosystems with industry that is spaced in their national landscape with a collaborative sense of exchanging knowledge between both parties.
ELIXIR’s vision is that the services and resources that are provided through the nodes (for example a database that contains information about proteins or a supercomputing centre) are utilised by industry and open for innovation with support from the central office.
“We position ourselves as a player in the overall innovation ecosystem in the life sciences.”
Katharina further shares the results of an exploratory study at ELIXIR about the use cases of their open databases, focusing on small to medium sized bioinformatics businesses, who rely more on open data in the first stages of their hypothesis and research than perhaps big conglomerates with more resources. 92% of the respondents stated that a product or service has more features because of access to open registries, open ontologies, etc. 76% of respondents stated that without open repositories, they would not be able to offer their product or service at all. This truly shows how essential open data and open science is for innovation and also creating jobs
With such inspiring statistics we moved on to the discussion where Ilaria jumped right in and asked about the situation around dedicated Industry Contact Officers (ICOs). As with many RIs in our previous coffee meets, ELIXIR also has dedicated ICOs in bigger nodes, but in smaller centres there are people who split the tasks without a dedicated employee.
Next broad topic was the open data concept and commercial enterprise relationship. Can open data be used for profit and how is that regulated for example by the European Commission? What about competitors who also have access to these databases?
In a broad sense Katharina explained, that all the data is open for the public, but certain licenses apply. This might be legally tricky process to initiate for the companies, but those are necessary steps for sharing this data. Regarding facilities like supercomputing centres or cloud services, it is also down to the individual facility and their conditions. At the end of the day, Katharina said that companies are becoming more and more aware of the possibilities of knowledge exchange and not strictly usage of services. Although, when it comes to competition, she remarqued, that if openly available data would make one’s company obsolete, then it’s time for further innovation in that company.
Francisca brought the discussion close to our previous session’s topic: ELIXIR training and if it’s more towards researchers or industry needs. Katharina replied with a great point: the needs are beyond affiliation. “If you want to use a specific technology, it doesn’t matter if you use it in industry or a research facility, they can access the same training. The general training like programming for biologists – doesn’t matter if you’re in industry or in academia, it’s the same.”
Our discussion had many more questions on topics such as difference of an open data user or a member state of ELIXIR, but that available on the video below.
We invite you to ENRIITC your coffee next week with Leif Gjerlöv Jensen, Technical Sales Engineer at AB Carlsson & Möller and Frida Tibblin-Citron, Business Developer at Big Science Sweden. We will meet as usual on Thursday, 15 April 2021 from 15:00 – 15:30 CET. Registration is open here and continue the discussion at our LinkedIn group here.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/S2E3-2.jpg15002000Piret Pajulahttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngPiret Pajula2021-04-09 10:43:122021-08-26 09:19:28#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 3: Episode 1 – “Open Data resources”
Welcome to the recap of the last #ENRIITCyourCoffee before we break for Easter. The invited speakers were Iulianna van der Lek, Training and Education Officer at Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN) and Shridhar Jawak, Remote Sensing Officer at Svalbard Integrated Earth Observing System (SIOS). The discussion was lead by Marco Galeotti, Communication Officer at the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory (EMSO).
Iulianna started with an introduction of CLARIN and its distributed connected data centres all over Europe. Since CLARIN has adopted the Open Science politics policy of the European Comission all integrated data sets are available in open access, not only for researchers but also for the citizens. She mentions that this aspect might make industry collaboration more difficult. Iulianna emphasises how CLARIN closely cooperates with innovation projects and in the cultural sector:
“We collaborate with galleries, libraries, archives and museums. And we need to ICOs to support us enhance the collaboration with the industry or non-academic partners.”
While CLARIN does not have a full-time ICO in the central office, but other staff members cover these tasks such as Technology Transfer Officer and collaboration of course is still ongoing. Most often these are one off projects or ongoing depends from case to case. Iulianna pointed out how there are many valuable skills for ICOs, but most important core skill is the ability to translate the value of the research infrastructure (RI) to the industry, and help develop a strategic knowledge and technology transfer plan. Of course, it’s also very important to know the data industry and have the ability to identify the gaps, that we could fill in.
“I think for a distributed RI, it’s very important that we come up with a developed and effective model for collaboration between the ICO and different nodes. This is one of the most important aspects or training topics, and we hope that ENRIITC and also other European partners, would help provide this type of training.”
After Iulianna’s great presentation, Shridhar Jawak from SIOS took us to the as north as #ENRIITCyourCoffe has possibly reached – Svalbard. SIOS focuses on the processes and interactions between the different spheres in and around Svalbard. The main activity is systematic observation, which is stable over time yet dynamic as new questions from the society arise. SIOS consists of 3 main sections:
Observing System, which is based on the scientific observations on site and the remotely sensed.
Consortium, which consists of 24 institutions from nine countries who have active RI in and around Svalbard.
Knowledge Center, which consists of five people who coordinate, develop and optimise the distributed RIs.
SIOS has different services like data management, logistics access program and the remote sensing resources. Shridhar takes care of the remote sensing services. He draws a comparison with CLARIN as they also don’t have a full-time ICO, but they distribute the tasks.
Shridhar mentions that Svalbard is a great place for research because it is High Artic with large temperature gradients and also influenced by water and air currents, in addition to a unique geographical position to use satellite data. SIOS also plays an active role in the European landscape of environmental RI.
Additionally, SIOS tries to engage industry with conferences, workshops, trainings with experts and other events to bring researchers, policymakers and industry together. A big driver for innovation in SIOS’ perspective is the changing climate and the global need to adapt to it in the future. This is especially sharply felt in Svalbard.
In the challenges section, Shridhar emphasised the difference of funding in RIs and industry. He felt like connecting these two models would lead to the most success in facilitating dialogue between the parties. Shridhar shared their experience, that firstly, workshops and conferences are very effective platforms to bring industry and researchers together. The key there being a well-crafted topic of interest. Secondly, access to research is important to drive the collaboration. Lastly, SIOS is going to launch the Science Innovation award, which will be open for both industry and research community and will provide new opportunities for industries to prove their technologies in Arctic scenarios and vice versa.
As soon as Shridhar’s presentation was over, a question arose as an extension about his last point: the Science Innovation Award – who, how and what? This was posed by our speaker in a previous #ENRIITCyourCoffee session Ilaria Nardello. Shridhar replied, that while the team in SIOS is still developing the concept, the basic idea is to also fund the proof of concept of technology, that can be implemented in the Arctic. But he teased that more will be clear in the coming months.
Next up was a question for Iulianna, which seems to be a part of every topic at every coffee session: who owns the intellectual property? In this case more between the CLARIN central management and the nodes. Iulianna answered that each node has the freedom to set up their own projects with industry. “We can exchange experiences and best practices, but we don’t really interfere in their projects. Of course, we will take the responsibility to coordinate this as much as possible and work in a united manner.” Additionally, she expressed excitement to be a part of ENRIITC since collaboration will help them develop their ICO profile and strategy. Regarding the next follow-up on ILOs, Iulianna specified that CLARIN has only ICOs because the industry is one of the users for their services, language technologies and resources.
Jorge Lopez addressed the next question to Iulianna about the effective model of collaboration that was mentioned in her slides. Iulianna elaborated that the model is under development and they are currently at a survey phase to pinpoint the industry collaboration activities in the nodes. She emphasised that they are still working on it since only four of the 23 members have information on ICOs present on their website. Further on, Jorge followed up with a question on the importance of technological knowledge on ICOs, which is also a returning topic at our coffees. Iulianna referred to the survey, which identified that there is little training happening on the topics of language data standards and repositories. She pointed out that this is essential for industry since mostly academia develops such repositories and a good basis for collaboration.
This was followed by a question on gendered language and if there are current collaborations on that. Iulianna’s colleague Elisa added, that there is indeed a project detecting gender biased language in parliamentary speeches and she expressed that this knowledge can easily be applied in a different field.
Next the topic shifted to IPR rules for publicly funded research work results, driven by a question from Ed Mitchell. This developed to a nice exchange of ideas and questions from several institutions, who all aimed to work on bettering this area and building on each other’s knowledge. You have the chance to listen the entire topic from 30:49 in the recording below.
We will retire our coffee briefly for Easter, but you are welcome to join the conversation on our LinkedIn group here. See you on Thursday, 8 April 2021 from 15:00 – 15:30 CET where the discussion on Open Data Resources will be led by Ilaria Nardello, Research Associate at SZN with Katharina Lauer the Industry officer at ELIXIR. Registration is open here.
https://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/WhatsApp-Image-2021-04-01-at-16.37.09.jpeg12001600Piret Pajulahttps://enriitc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/enriitc2.pngPiret Pajula2021-04-01 16:41:302021-08-26 09:21:19#ENRIITCyourCoffee Season 2: Episode 9 “Training Challenges and Opportunities for ICO’s”
Image owned by BSS
Image owned by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare.
