Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CAMART2 (Centre of Advanced Materials Research and Technology Transfer CAMART²)
Teaser
\"The CAMART² (‘Excellence Centre of Advanced Material Research and Technology Transfer’) project is aimed to upgrade the existing Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia (ISSP), which was established in 2001 by the former project...
Summary
\"The CAMART² (‘Excellence Centre of Advanced Material Research and Technology Transfer’) project is aimed to upgrade the existing Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia (ISSP), which was established in 2001 by the former project CAMART, realised within EC FP5.
The CAMART² project is based on a long-term partnership between ISSP, KTH Royal Institute of Technology – the largest technical university in Sweden, and RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden.
ISSP is renowned for its scientific achievements in applied materials physics for micro- and nanotechnology, electronics, photonics, functional coatings etc. and related theoretical and characterization capability.
The vision of CAMART² is to establish ISSP as the most important centre of excellence for education, science, innovation and technology transfer in the Baltic States. ISSP will also become the hub for a collaboration and technology transfer platform (called \"\"RIX-STO\"\") for materials physics including scientists, entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers on both sides of the Baltic Sea.
The commitment from the Swedish partners assures successful modernization of ISSP, including an overall refinement of the educational programs, strengthening of the research and development activities towards higher technology readiness levels, establishment of an innovation system and Open Access Laboratory, as well as ISO 9001 certification.
The partners play a substantial role in an ambitious program for networking and outreach to make a real impact on academia and high-tech industries in the region around Riga and Stockholm, with respect to scientific results, economic growth and increased competitiveness. The region will benefit from an injection of highly educated young people, closer collaboration between academia and industry, and offering state-of-the-art open access research infrastructure boosting innovation and economy.\"
Work performed
All the work packages have started all the relevant activities at good pace from the first year of the project. It is expected that the new organisation shall be in place by end of 2019 as planned.
The appointment people at the key leading positions and most of the relevant staff has been done. Naturally, a project of this size has created challenges in the implementation of the new organisation and with the involvement of a relevant number of people. Efforts are put into these issues to ensure the changes to happen smoothly. Yet, the coordinated efforts of the Latvian team of work package leaders, the support and involvement of Consortium partners KTH and RISE, proactive project management and firm supervision by the steering committee have made it possible to drive the project forward and in the right pace.
Summary of the progress by the key areas:
- Research – Research program upgrade and action plan developed, priority research directions being formulated and assessed, work for high quality international projects applications intensified.
- Innovations – detailed action plan for innovation system activities created, the core organisation and processes for innovation have been implemented and running, number of workshops conducted (including Deep Science Hackathon in 2018), collaboration with industry intensified (nationally and internationally).
- Education – New Master program due by 2018, International student program initiated, other activites in planning.
- Open Access Laboratory – initial business model operational, most key staff of the service laboratories appointed, processes and standardization under-way, tools procurement and facility upgrade in process.
- Organisational change - service-oriented organisation setup conducted, ISO process under-way, Laboratory Information Management Software (LIMS) operational, KPI and compensations system being updated.
- Outreach, dissemination and communication – the intensity of the outreach and networking activities has been increased, dissemination materials are created, the strategy for collaboration with industry and branding are developed and being implemented (www.materize.com), market assessment for sales development and networking has been conducted.
Final results
The CAMART² project aims to upgrade the existing Centre of Excellence at ISSP UL by building a long-term strategic partnership with the internationally leading R&D&I institutions KTH and RISE, which are highly successful in research commercialization. The CAMART² project is expected to improve the research and innovation environment at the Excellence Centre that will result in the creation of RIX-STO collaboration and technology transfer platform. With its recognition as a highly competent partner for relevant EC-defined KETs (Advanced materials, Photonics, Nanotechnology and Micro- and Nanoelectronics as defined in section 1.1.1), the centre will reach the top EU level and continue to develop and broaden after the end of the project period. CAMART² project will boost the scientific and innovations excellence of ISSP through a range of new R&D&I projects and the attraction of top-level scientists and students. Technology exploitation, business generation and long-term sustainability will be promoted by the development of an innovation system, an institute reorganisation, an active human resource management and training, extended outreach and networking activities, refinement to the education system, and development of the Open Access Laboratory, all of which are described in detail in Section 3 of this proposal.
The quality and intensity of the research, innovation and education will improve substantially. Increased income resulting from research, innovation and industrial projects, Open Access Laboratory user/service fees from industry, and reimbursements from University for education of students will replace CAMART² funding, thereby providing long-term financial sustainability of the upgraded Centre.
We expect that the realisation of the project will have a multilevel impact on
- Institutional level impact – ISSP research, innovation, and education,
- National level – impact on the Latvian economy, including the experience of CAMART² becoming an arena for the development of the innovation system in Latvia
- Regional impact – Riga-Stockholm science-innovation collaboration and beyond.
At the current mid-term stage of the setting up of the new organisation and testing of the new processes many of the expected benefits and impacts can be seen already – in terms of science, innovations, education, outreach and organisational change already having taken place. Yet broader internal and external impact shall be vivid and measurable after the full setup of the new organisation having taken place and the results of the full roll-out can be seen.
Website & more info
More info: http://www.camart2.eu.