ÆRTOS

Associated European Research and Technology Organisations

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'ÆRTOs will network major applied research activities of four EU Member States (DE, FR, FI, and NL) and one Associated State (NO). Further countries will join the project later. The research activities to be networked are “National Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs)”. These are programme organisations mandated by their national government to undertake strategic research in support of societal development including economic competitiveness and innovation. They receive dedicated programme funding – sometimes referred to as “core funding” – from their government for this purpose. They are public research programmes targeted at fulfilling strategic national objectives. There are no supra-national RTOs in Europe, although some RTOs have limited extra-national activities within Europe, and inter-RTO cooperation is mostly limited to case-by-case project cooperation. Greater cooperation among RTOs would produce important efficiency gains by exploiting synergies and avoiding duplication of effort, and a stronger coordinated pan-European RTO infrastructure would enhance Europe’s attractiveness as an R&D location and so help retain industrial R&D investment here at a time of increasing globalisation. A major constraint at present on large-scale inter-RTO cooperation in Europe is the national “lock-in” effect caused by the current national core funding regimes. ÆRTOs’s ambition is to break that constraint by establishing a principle of RTO partnership based on cooperation and reciprocity. The project has the enthusiastic support of the RTO programme owners of the five participating countries. The aim of the proposed ERA-NET, therefore, is to begin the construction of a new, integrated pan-European RTO infrastructure by identifying and implementing research activities of common interest (full and variable geometry) which promise added value from greater cooperation, and by developing corresponding sustainable modes of governance and funding.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Several EU countries have come together to exchange knowledge on research and technology related to sustainable energy. This has led to important new guidelines and recommendations on energy and waste.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The EU's research potential in areas such as sustainable energy is an admirable one, and can be greatly enhanced if different research organisations from across the bloc work together. The EU-funded project 'Associated European research and technology organisations' (Aertos) aimed to achieve this objective.

In coordination with the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO), the project brought seven major public research organisations together from Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. It sought ways to avoid duplication of effort and strengthen innovation in research and technology, including development of funding mechanisms and new governance mechanisms.

Under this powerful consortium, the project conducted several meetings, study visits and workshops to outline the strategies and operations of research and technology organisations, pinpointing potential areas of collaboration. Although there is already admirable cooperation in this field across Europe, most EU-funded initiatives expire after a certain period, prompting the need for another, more sustainable model of collaboration.

Aertos thus produced guidelines on how best to collaborate and recommended several cooperation initiatives in different fields such as waste management and alternative energy. With respect to human resources (HR), the project developed a dynamic management training programme and a joint HR policy to encourage cross-border mobility-related research and technology organisations. It also launched and successfully completed six projects related to energy efficiency of buildings and offshore wind energy.

Many other pivotal areas of collaboration were identified for encouraging collaboration, including bio-based economies, value from waste, resilience of cities, service science and scarcity of critical materials. The project conducted workshops on each topic and developed research agendas accordingly, which were outlined in a green paper in accordance with the EU's Horizon 2020 objectives.

One notable initiative in this respect was the 'Value from waste' project, which investigated the recovery, separation and reuse of scarce metals, as well as the safe management of nanowaste. It worked on developing new, cost-effective ways to recycle scarce materials and analyse the impact of nanowaste on the environment. This represented a very ambitious initiative that pertained to one of the different key fields identified.

On another front, Aertos developed a comprehensive governance structure for long-term cooperation. It successfully demonstrated the viability of joint programmes and their efficiency gains by exploiting synergies and consolidating their efforts. This has already begun to strengthen European innovation potential and is expected to bring numerous benefits in research and technology, particularly in the area of environmental sustainability.