KTH becomes new EU innovation partner
EIT, the European Institute of Technology, is one of EU´s most important efforts to bring about new forms of co-operation between academy and industry. Recently two applications for project funding were granted; one in the field of climate and energy research, and the other regarding “green & safe road transports”, with KTH as one of the partners involved.
The idea behind EIT is to strengthen education, research and innovation efforts in some of EU´s key interest areas. These efforts are concentrated by way of so-called Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC). Here prominent and recognised EU groups of scientists are to join forces with major industrial companies to promote new products. The funding of the first few of these KIC units, with some 300 million Euro in their budgets, has now been secured from various sources. Another four or five KIC units are in the planning stages, too – this would require total funding amounting to ten times the above sum.
In order to establish good working models for how KIC units should co-operate with industry, the EU Commission had announced a special "introductory pilot offer" regarding outline KIC´s, which assemblies of universities and research bodies could apply for, jointly with industry. Some fifty consortia did apply for these. Four of these schemes had KTH as one of its partners, two of which have now been granted.
Torsten Fransson, Professor at the School of Industrial Engineering & Management, is head of the KTH part of the so-called SUCCESS project (climate and energy research for sustainable environments), with Ramon Wyss, Anders Hagfeldt and Lars Nordström also participating from KTH.
Annika Stensson, Professor at the School of Engineering Sciences, is the main KTH leader of GAST (green & safe road transports), with Ramon Wyss also assisting. One important partner is Volvo. Both SUCCESS and GAST will be co-ordinated by Universität Karlsruhe in Germany.
Christer Gummeson