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RSS SubscribeFriday 1st February 2008
New energy/climate and mobility initiatives kick off
by CORDIS
SUCCESS (Searching Unprecedented Cooperations on Energy and Climate to Ensure Sustainability) and GAST (Green and Safe Road Transportation) are the names of two EU-funded pilot projects that are intended to pave the way for the European Institute of Technology (EIT). Both newly-launched initiatives are coordinated by the Institute of Technology Karlsruhe (KIT), Germany.
According to the KIT, the two projects aim to identify efficient and effective ways of coordinating large-scale cooperation between science and industry. As Knowledge and Communication Communities (KICs), the projects’ initial focus is not the technical or scientific solution of a given problem in the fields of energy and climate or mobility, but rather the creation of cooperative structures.
“In order to achieve this, it is necessary to find and use new, so far untrodden ways of cooperation and coordination,” says Professor Hans-Jörg Bauer, head of the Institute for Thermal Turbomachinery (ITS) at the University of Karlsruhe and coordinator of the new SUCCESS project. Due to their complexity, both areas, energy/climate and mobility, require a joint European effort, involving large-scale research institutes, universities, industry, technology transfer organisations and SMEs.
In preparing the projects, it was particularly exciting to bring together partners from science and industry from all over Europe, whose expertise lies in completely different fields with a scientific background on one hand and socio-economic know-how on the other, Professor Bauer adds.
Finding sustainable solutions to scientific and social problems in Europe depends on the strengthening of the knowledge triangle. However, not only do its cornerstones need to be reinforced, but the areas where they intersect need to be improved, Professor Bauer states, particularly the intersections between research and innovation and training and innovation.
“Only by collaborating is it possible to work on solutions to essential problems in the future of mobility and transport in Europe,” Professor Frank Gauterin of the Institute of Vehicle Science and Mobile Machines at the University of Karlsruhe believes. One of the main objectives of the GAST project is to increase energy efficiency in transport and make traffic safer all over Europe, he says, adding that industry and research will have to coordinate their research goals even more than before.
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