Newsletters

Fourth I3E Newsletter - February 2012

• Strategic Research Agenda (Collapse)

  The Transnational Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) (pdf) is a major output of the I3E project, which is dedicated to the improvement of innovation transfer between researchers and industry, relevant to the industrial informatics and embedded systems sector in the South East Europe (SEE) area. It helps developers and researchers to focus their research plans on relevant topics as well as to avoid barriers in transforming their ideas and research results into innovations. The SRA is formed based on the feedback and intensive cooperation with leading research and government institutions and industry in the respected represented countries in the SEE area. A consensus of the different stakeholders has been reached and the Strategic Research Agenda is the result of this consensus. The strategic research agenda also seeks synergies with relevant European initiatives to multiply its impact. The SRA aims to help different stakeholders to align their activities in the industrial informatics and embedded system sectors. Stakeholders comprise all participants from research and academic institution, the enterprise world, the facilitators of innovation, such as clusters, technology platforms and existing networks of excellence, as well as the public sector and private funding organisations.

  Challenges

  South East Europe  is a dynamically growing area that is on the way to reach the economic level of Western Europe. In the last five years, SEE GDP's growth is on average twice the average of the European Union, yet the GDP per capita is 25-50% of the EU average, meaning on one hand an expanding consumer market and on the other hand inexpensive labour. A combination of these two factors gives an opportunity for the region to narrow the gap with the developed countries of Western Europe, because of the continuously growing foreign and domestic investments combined with the relatively cheap work force. The purpose of the I3E Strategic Research Agenda is to adopt, adjust, upgrade and apply the basic goals and outcomes of Europe-wide programmes to the social, economic and technological specifics of the SEE region in the sectors of industrial informatics and embedded systems in order to align research efforts in the area towards common goals and provide a critical mass that will increase international visibility of the area.

  Targets and Visions

  One of the basic tasks of the SRA is to analyse the existing infrastructural, economical and social conditions. The countries and economies in the region differ to a considerable extent, yet due to the diversity of the I3E project partners a cross-national and cross-domain understanding can be set up, which allows to make use of the differences to find synergies and opportunities. Furthermore, the advantages but also the drawbacks that the region has in these domains in comparison to the rest of the European Union are identified. Then, specific regional interests in the fields of industrial informatics and embedded systems, relating to the above and to the development plans of local industry are defined. The outcomes of these studies will help national, regional and European funding institutions to prepare adequate programmes and to identify research with the highest potential in the SEE region. By bringing together the stakeholders at national and regional level, productive and sustainable collaboration among them will be established. Summarising, the ultimate goal of the SRA is to identify the most lucrative areas and sub-domains of industrial informatics and embedded systems, where the regional and national industry could be most successful, and to establish creative collaboration among the stakeholders in order to exploit the outcomes of the project. The vision to follow in the Strategic Research Agenda of the I3E project is to contribute to the growth of all stakeholders in the area of industrial informatics and embedded systems in the SEE region by fostering collaboration between them at both regional and national level in order to essentially increase the innovation and thus the added value and overall growth of the area.

  Research Priorities

  Research topics have been identified in the consensus building process including various stakeholders from the whole SEE region. In the table below the horizontal rows represent the application areas whereas the columns identify the key developments to strengthen the SEE area.

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• National Profiles (Collapse)

  The document on National Profiles (pdf) collects national specifics in the areas identified by the Strategic Research Agenda. Each National Profile has been created by local experts seeking broad consensus with industrial, academic and political stakeholders of each country. It therefore gives valuable additional information on how to implement the SRA in the countries of Greece, Italy, Austria, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. The document follows the structure of the SRA and focuses on the areas of Embedded Systems and Industrial Informatics identified in the Agenda. In particular, these areas are: Flexible Manufacturing, Europe Going "Green", "Green" Energy Market, Efficient Use of Energy, Health Support, Monitoring, Diagnostics and Living Assistance, Home Appliances, Smart Houses, Nomadic Environments, Public Transport, Waste Management, and Embedded Systems in Agriculture.

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• 7^th I3E Workshop - Greece (Collapse)

  The 7th I3E Workshop was successfully organised by the Industrial Systems Institute and the University of Patras on January 13th-14th, 2012, in Patras, Greece. The two-day event was entitled "Innovation in the time of Crisis". The event was welcomed by Professor Dimitrios Serpanos, Director of the Industrial Systems Institute, Professor Dimitrios Kalpaxis, vice-rector of the University of Patras, Professor Dimitrios Dougenis, representing the Region of Western Greece, and Mr. Platonas Marlafekas, President of the Chamber of Achaia . The two I3E main outputs, the Strategic Research Agenda and the Methodology Guideline for Innovation, were presented by Dr. Aleksey Bratukhin from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Dr. Athanasios Kalogeras from the Industrial Systems Institute, respectively. Dr. Alkis Konstantellos, Principal Scientific Officer in the EC, presented EC policies for Research and Innovation Promotion in the Embedded Systems and Industrial Informatics Sectors. Professor Vasilios Makios presented "Corallia", the Hellenic Technology Clusters Initiative, and its vision for Innovation "Made in Greece". Professor Dimitrios Mourtzis from the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautics Engineering at the University of Patras presented innovative manufacturing processes enabling the smart customization paradigm, Professor Petros Groumpos from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras analysed the concept of open versus close innovation. Professor Elissaveta Gourova from the New Bulgarian University gave a speech about the proper technology environment for Open Innovation and creativity. The event continued with the presentation of Dimitrios Tsigos, president of the European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, outlining the problems that entrepreneurship encounters in Greece and how the elimination of various obstacles could lead to sustainable development. Professor Vesna Mandic from the University of Kragujevac, Serbia emphasized the role of networking for innovation and presented successful examples in the region of Western Balkans. Mr. Peter Statev, president of the Foundation ICT Cluster in Bulgaria, explained why clusters are a valuable tool which can benefit SMEs and boost competitiveness. Finally, Professor Stavros Koubias from the University of Patras, presented the efforts of University concerning the promotion of Innovation through the close collaboration of departments and laboratories. The first day ended with a round table discussion aiming at the identification of common perspectives in the South East Europe area with reference to innovation as a means for development. On the second day, the participants visited the Patras Science Park and several high tech companies hosted there. Then, they visited the Corallia Patras InnoHub physically located next to the University of Patras and providing the necessary facilities and services for start ups or early stage companies of mi-cluster, the first Corallia cluster in microelectronics. The day concluded with a visit to the Patras Industrial Zone and an innovative chemical / pharmaceutical company located there.

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Third I3E Newsletter - November 2011

• Workshops (Collapse)

  In the context of the I3E project, a series of networking activities has been planned and implemented according to the project plan. A major activity represents the organization of seven networking workshops in the countries of the participating partners. A final transnational conference will be organized by the lead partner at the end of the project. The main objectives of the workshops are: to briefly present the objectives and activities of I3E project to present the current results of the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and the Methodology Guideline for Innovation (MGI) to a relevant audience, mostly from the sectors of Industrial Informatics and Embedded Systems, to bring together local stakeholders from the fields of Industrial Informatics and Embedded Systems representing organizations, such as research/academic institutions, SMEs, technology centers, clusters, public institutions etc. to stimulate discussion, in order to get feedback information for possible elaboration and improvement of the MGI and SRA documents Optionally the workshops may also aim at: presenting some “best” practices selected among a database of 120 “good” practices compiled by the I3E partnership presenting ideas for future networking and collaboration

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• Implemented Events (Collapse)

  1st Workshop - Slovenia

  The first workshop presenting the results of the I3E project was organized as a Session of the 3rd international “Technology Transfer Conference” held on October 7 - 8, 2010 at Josef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The conference was co-organized by the two Slovenian I3E partners, Josef Stefan Institute (JSI) and University of Maribor (UOM), in cooperation with other Slovenian research and academic institutes. The conference targeted researchers of public research organizations (PROs) in Europe with the aim of increasing awareness and knowledge about technology transfer processes and their necessity. It also targeted at enterprises seeking collaboration with public research organizations.

  2nd Workshop - Bulgaria

  The workshop entitled “SEE Days of Microelectronics and Embedded Systems, Innovation and Competitiveness” was organized on February 17 -18, 2011, in Sofia, Bulgaria by I3E Bulgarian partners, Foundation For New Bulgarian University (FNBU) and Bulgarian ICT Cluster (BICT), in cooperation with Foundation of Applied Research and Communication Fund. The conference targeted representatives of SMEs in the field of ICT and particularly microelectronic and industrial informatics, as well as university and research representatives and public administration. Furthermore, invited representatives from South Europe countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYROM, Croatia, Albania and Turkey, which are not part of the consortium, provided a valuable insight about the ICT sector and recent developments in their respective countries.

  3rd Workshop - Romania

  The 3rd I3E workshop entitled “Current State and Trends of Embedded Systems and Industrial Informatics Fields”, took place on April 15, 2011 at the premises of the Technical University of Cluz-Napoca, Romania. Several significant aspects concerning innovation were presented and analyzed, while special attention was given to embedded systems and industrial informatics research fields, in accordance with the main objectives of the project. Finally, the event succeeded into highlighting issues such as potential of ICT in Romania/SE Europe, ICT market challenges and opportunities, research and development trends in ICT fields.

  4th Workshop - Austria

  “I3E Hightech DAYS” was the title of the Austrian national workshop for I3E project. The Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW) hosted this event at its premises in Vienna on June 23, 2011 while June 24, 2011 was marked by site visit in Wiener Neustadt Technopol. The first day focused on the presentation of the project results while including keynote speeches for the funding landscape on innovation in EU and in Austria, smart sensor technologies, integrated sensor systems, MEMS and Micro- & NanoSystems as well as networking as an instrument transnational cooperation. On the second day site visit to high tech laboratories and companies of Technopol Wiener Neustadt took place.

  5th Workshop - Italy

  Italian partner IEA organized the 5th I3E workshop in Matera, Italy on June 25, 2011. The status of the project’s two major outcomes, namely the Strategic Research Agenda and the Methodology Guideline for Innovation, was presented by members of the I3E project team. Moreover, several aspects of innovation , such as managerial innovation, management practices, regional policies, funding schemes, and successful approaches, were presented by the speakers who came from various public and private organizations.

  6th Workshop - Serbia

  The 6th workshop, “Promotion of Research and Innovation for competitiveness” of the I3E project was held on October 19 - 20, 2011 at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Belgrade, Serbia. The workshop was co-organized by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – University of Kragujevac (UOK), Serbian Chamber of Commerce in Belgrade and the University of Belgrade. The emphasis of the workshop was on the presentation of achieved results within the project. Participants from 12 countries attended the Workshop (Greece, France, Italia, Austria, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia). A total of 110 participants participated on the first day (October 19, 2011) while 75 participants participated on the second day (October 20, 2011).

  7th Workshop - Greece

  The 7th and last workshop of the I3E project will take place in Patras, Greece in January 2012. The workshop will be co-organised by Lead Partner Industrial Systems Institute and new project partner University of Patras. The workshop will provide an insight in the project achieved outputs and results.

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Second I3E Newsletter - August 2011

• Analysis and selection of Best Practices (Collapse)

  Aiming at the compilation of a Methodology Guide on Innovation the I3E partnership has compiled a database of 120 Good Practices (GPs). These Good Practices have been analysed against a specific methodology, leading to the selection of 30 Best Practices + 2 Reserve Best Practices. The methodology is based on several criteria – financial, impact, realisation, innovation, social, etc. Each criterion brings a certain number of points to each GP. All GPs have been assessed by 3 project partners. The 30 Best Practices with the highest ranking come from different application areas, i.e. 10 come from the area of industrial informatics, 5 from nomadic environments, 2 from private spaces and 13 from the area of public infrastructures. 2 Reserve Best Practices have also been provided

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• Summaries of 30 Best Practices, plus 2 reserve Best Practices (Collapse)

  Technopol Wiener Neustadt, Austria (Collapse)

  In order to bridge the gap between the areas of academic education, industry and R&D the so called “Technopol-program” of Lower Austria was founded in 2004. The Technopol location Wiener Neustadt focuses on five technology fields a) materials, b) surfaces, c) medical technology, d) processes and e) sensorsactors which are summarized as “Modern Industrial Technologies”. In each of these areas at least three independent facilities are engaged with overall staff of at least 30 scientists to build a critical mass. It is the aim of the Technopol manager to double the amount of scientists from 300 to 600 at the Technopol till 2013 and to build a strong network between the thematic adequate companies, the academic education and R&D facilities.

  Technoseed, Italy (Collapse)

  Techno Seed is an initiative with the aim of collecting a set of good and innovative ideas in ICT field and make them concrete innovations through the creation of new enterprises thanks to a formation, consulting, incubation path. In other words, Techno Seed is an enterprise incubator situated in the Science & Technology Park of Udine. It is has been funded by the Ministry of Economic Development and it is promoted by Friuli Innovazione (a research center) , by University of Udine and by Ires FVG (Economic and Social Research Center).

  TIVIT, Finland (Collapse)

  In Finland, in order to foster research and innovation, and collaboration, multidisciplinary Strategic Centers for Science Technology and Innovation are established and involve different sectors of industry and society. Basically, they are organized as nonprofit organizations, owned by industrial and academic partners, and a virtual research organization. In their research programs, it is possible to generate sufficient critical mass and combine versatile competences for achieving world-class expertise and global breakthroughs. Together with shareholders investments, centers are funded by public organizations with annual investments of some €40-60 million.

  Syrinix, UK (Collapse)

  Syrinix is a spin-out company from the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Following almost ten years of research and consultancy in the field of water leak detection and location, Syrinix Limited was created to exploit this expertise. The detection facilitates the prevention of larger leaks and allows the water companies to intervene successfully to prevent the catastrophic failure of pipes and the subsequent loss of water and potential damage to surrounding infrastructure (buildings, roads, etc.). Syrinix believes that it has the most sophisticated and most sensitive leak detection algorithms available. Its world-class signal processing allows to Syrinix to offer products like the TrunkMinder strategic trunk mains monitoring system. The detection of small leaks in large mains is just one example of automatically detecting important, often time critical, events in the environment. Syrinix extended its sensor and signal processing expertise to other products that meet customer needs for similar functionality. A new pressure transient detector, Ptarmigan, spots transient events and returns pertinent information about the event to the pipeline operator.

  Regional Innovation Pole of Western Greece, Greece (Collapse)

  The Regional Innovation Pole of Western Greece is a union of public and private sector key players in the Region of Western Greece, aiming at the development, promotion and exploitation of innovation in the Region. The pole has succeeded in bringing together universities, technological institutions, research institutions, business support organizations, regional authorities and the entrepreneurial world of Western Greece in the effort to combine abilities and lead to the overall growth of the Region. The Regional Innovation Pole focuses on three axes that represent the areas of strategic importance of the Region of Western Greece: Technologies of Informatics and Communications, Safety and Technologies of Foods, Environmental Management and Protection. The tools that the pole utilized comprise 9 R&D consortia, 4 infrastructure development activities, 3 spin-off companies, 1 technological platform elaboration, 1 educational / training course elaboration, 6 horizontal activities for the development of tools and methods for the pole viability.

  Sirma Young Spirit, Bulgaria (Collapse)

  Sirma Young Spirit (SYS) program is designed to help young entrepreneurs in the field of Information Technologies (IT) and provide them with seed investments, which represent the earliest stage in the chain of venture funding. The SYS program is key part of Sirma's strategy to look for new business ideas and to seek, promote and develop innovations. Sirma Group is the largest private Bulgarian group of IT companies. It was founded in 1992 and now includes 18 subsidiaries and associated companies operating in different areas of IT. During 17 years of successful growth the group has accumulated a substantial capital of unique technologies, goodwill, technical and business expertise. Sirma has always searched for good ideas and our success largely results on the ability to find good ideas and drive them into successful business enterprises. The SYS program is a natural continuation of the company’s internal R&D and investment processes.

  Intelesens, UK (Collapse)

  Intelesens is an internationally recognized, leading innovator in targeted non-invasive vital signs monitoring. Intelesens was incorporated in August 2000 (with Enterprise Equity leading an investment of £1.7m into the company in May 2005) by 3 leading scientists as a University of Ulster spin-out company, thereby ensuring the continued identification and design of world beating new products. Intelesens develops and manufactures its own products and also designs products for OEMs. Further to products that have been developed specifically for medical device partners, Intelesens has developed their own range of patented products. The company's strengths lie in non-invasive wireless medical devices combined with medical sensors and electrodes.

  Cardio & Brain Signals—BRACCIA FP6 Project, Slovenia (Collapse)

  The Cardio & Brain Signals was developed by joint effort of several research institutions under the 6th framework project BRACCIA. The development team was funded by the EU and Slovenian research and development agency. The main goal was to design and develop a new system for data acquisition, where the main stress would be on signal conditioning and high quality AD conversion, as well as, the instrument had to be easy to use and operate. The approach was to build an instrument as an embedded system, with soft-core programmable processor, which would process data from high end audio AD converters and send them to the standard PC via USB. The system was successfully used for a number of measurements on humans and rats during anesthesia under the project BRACCIA. Lately the system is also used by other research institutions for their specific use. More specifically the system was recently used at the Faculty of Arts, at the University of Ljubljana in a study, where cognitive functions were monitored during a mental task.

  Corallia, Greece (Collapse)

  Corallia Clusters Initiative is an initiative that aims at the development of innovation clusters in high technology sectors that present high potential to increase their competitiveness, improve their position in the global market and adopt a model for the provision of high added value services. Taking into account that clusters provide a powerful tool for economic development, Corallia has placed its emphasis in the transformation of the Greek economy from the “low labor cost economy” model to the “high added value service” model focusing on knowledge economy. Corallia has been funded under the Greek Operational Programme Competitiveness and has already led to the development of mi- Cluster, a cluster in the sectors of nano/micro electronics and embedded systems with over 100 organizations coming from the industry, academia and research world all over Greece.

  KIBERsik, Slovenia (Collapse)

  KIBERsik is part of the KIBERnet family designed to meet demanding challenges of the future SmartGrid technologies. The system KIBERsik will be built and demonstrated at four industrial consumer sites. It will enable lower energy bills and efficient use of energy. KIBERsik was developed by research teams of INEA, Jozef Stefan Institute and Faculty for Electrical Engineering in Ljubljana. The project is co financed by the European structural funds and Slovenian Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology.

  Competence Brokering, Norway (Collapse)

  Research-based brokering is a sub-programme of the programme Mobilization for R&D-related innovation (MOBI), organized by the Research Council of Norway. It has two equal goals: To promote greater focus on R&D activity in companies with little or no R&D experience in order to increase their internal innovative capacity, thereby enhancing value creation and competitiveness (stimulation of R&D demand). To strengthen the role of the research institutes as partners in collaboration with industry (stimulation of R&D supply). Through organization in regional coalitions, competence mediators should contribute to an increased awareness of the possibilities and potential offered to regional development by research. The main R&D focus areas are biotechnology, energy/petroleum, environment, medicine/health, polar research, social sciences and large scale programs (national basis), regional development, agriculture, farming, marine sectors/ fisheries/aqua culture, entrepreneurship and new business development (regional basis). The most important measures the “Competence Broker” has taken are to educate competence brokers, identify SME research needs, make a match between them with relevant local research outputs and follow-up projects.

  EuroGPS Safe Drive, Bulgaria (Collapse)

  ICOM Ltd. is a leading Bulgarian technology provider specialized in the field of telematics, ITS, and LBS for the corporate and consumer markets. The company designs, develops, and manufactures advanced GPS tracking, vehicle control and vehicle fleet management, electronic toll collection, and LBS products and solutions under the trade name “EuroGPS”. The EuroGPS SafeDrive - is a GPS-based vehicle speed monitoring and alerting system with a state-of-the-art centralized POI management, and automatic Webbased POI database distribution and update into the plug-and-play GPS devices. The GPS alerting devices make real-time calculations about the exact geographic position, speed and direction of your vehicle and warn you with voice and visual alerts about approaching different POI’s (accident black spots on the roadway, speed cameras, etc.) . The first 2 phases of the creation of EuroGPS SafeDrive (research and development) were co-funded by the “National Innovation Fund” of the Bulgarian government, managed by the The Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency (BSMEPA).

  Mobile Asset Management Platform, Austria (Collapse)

  The industrial partner keeps and provides centralized geospatial information data such as transfer information, switch point information, plot information, customer information and much more in a Geospatial Information System (GIS) as part of a Network Information System (NIS). This system is used by the Telekom Austria TA AG for all of Austria as field of activity. The idea of this project is to provide field force agents with a part of this information out of the GIS to alleviate their work and shorten their overall lead time. For the benefit of the field agents and the customers and therefore for the whole company. This information will be provided in form of a web application in well-defined information layers and intuitive user controls. The web application grants access with common smart phones, which are already used by most companies in the field.

  MikroElektronika, Serbia (Collapse)

  Founded in 2001, MikroElektronika (with 40 employees) produces now a wide range of development tools, compilers and books for PIC, dsPIC, AVR, 8051, ARM and PSoC microcontroller families. The company headquarter is located in Belgrade and production facilities in Lajkovac, Serbia. The production facilities of MikroElektronika are equipped with true hole and SMD (surface mounting device) assembly technology. These two production lines enable the company to manufacture first class products with complete hardware and software solutions accompanied by printed manuals. MikroElektronika is Microchip, Atmel AVR, Atmel 8051, Cypress PSoC and NPX ARM third party partner, as well as Telit Competence Center.

  PFAU, Germany (Collapse)

  Technology-based and know-how based SMEs are important in the modernization of the economy. Start-ups from universities and spin-offs from research centers and scientific institutions can be a significant factor. Entrepreneurs from universities base their business ideas more on recent R&D results. Thus the promotion of start-up activities from universities and R&D institutes is an instrument that speeds up technology transfer from the science to the business community. The main promotion goal is to develop innovative products, processes and service ideas into a marketable product or service by using existing state-of-the-art facilities at the universities and R&D centers (laboratories, equipment, ICT infrastructure). The program targets graduates from universities and researchers whose last university degree (diploma or PhD) was completed at the latest three years prior to application. The program offers a financial stimulus on a monthly base in order to support graduates in the option of "Starting your own business". The maximum duration of the funding is 2 years. Additionally, the start-ups are given a kind of "pocket money" to upgrade business skills and make their first investments in equipment. The program was developed and is financed by the Ministry of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology in North Rhine Westphalia.

  Spin-off Foundation, Austria (Collapse)

  A successful foundation of a spin-off company from a university based research group including the transformation of research results into products. Key success factors are the way how the relationship between the company and the university has been preserved to jointly pursue the research and product lines, the stable financing with own capital and the mutual benefits for both parties. For the continuous success also the broadening of this initial relationship to other academia was important to cover different research needs. The best practice is located in the niche-market for design and development of embedded systems for industrial electronics and similar conservative markets. Having a market allowing for long term customer relations and development is an important pre-requisite for the success. The continuous success and growth over almost the whole last decade shows the success of this concept.

  NORDITE Program, Scandinavia (Collapse)

  NORDITE program for funding of research in the area of embedded systems is being issued on behalf of VINNOVA Sweden, the Research Council of Norway and Tekes, Finland. The program is designed to promote increased co-operative research in the fields of technology development for shortwave radio, wireless sensors, short range wireless networks and RFID or MEMS utilizing RF technology and to assist Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish research institutes and companies to further develop and demonstrate their technical expertise in that area. It had been realized in a form of two calls for projects funded by national funds in the sum of app. 15 million EURO. NORDITE program was running from 2005 to 2010. Results have been presented in yearly conferences. In November 2009, the final NORDITE2 Conference was held in Helsinki, Finland. It was organized by Tekes, VINNOVA, and RCN. In the conference, NORDITE2 projects were presented. With this event, the NORDITE initiative was successfully concluded.

  Virtual Manufacturing Support, Serbia (Collapse)

  Virtual Manufacturing Support for Enterprises in Serbia was implemented within EDEP programme “Support to Enterprise Development and Entrepreneurship Program” with realization period from December 2006 to September 2007. Results achieved by implementing this project are: • Foundation of Centre for Virtual Manufacturing at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Kragujevac • Foundation of virtual manufacturing user network – VMnet, and collaborative Web portal for efficient network support • Completed 2 Pilot projects with selected enterprises, members of VMnet network • Seminars and Workshops

  UltraSOC, UK (Collapse)

  UltraSoc Technologies (UST) was founded in 2006 as a spin-out from the University of Kent and became a joint spin-out with the University of Essex to exploit the research carried out by a University research team. The company aims to develop and market UltraDebug TM, a highly flexible, multi-processor, System-on-Chip (SOC) debug support platform. UltraDebug TM will provide superior, application-level, debugging facilities, enabling the embedded systems industry to create more advanced and reliable products in markets such as automotive and consumer devices.

  IMS-BAS, Bulgaria (Collapse)

  IMS-BAS offers integrated technological complex to create high-quality castings of nonferrous alloys casting method with gas pressure (CPCM). Management processes are implemented based on microcontrollers. The development is the result of collaboration of Foundry Institute, Aachen Germany, MAGMA GmbH and Foundry Institute, Krakow, Poland, IMSBAS. Financing of the project is under the program "Copernicus", entitled "Use of numerical simulation to obtain high quality castings from casting a gaseous pressure" (under contract CIPA-CT94-0156). As a result the customer receives a machine, equipment and technology to ensure high quality products at high productivity, reduced energy consumption and metal and compliance with modern environmental standards.

  Technology Park of St. Petersburg, Russia (Collapse)

  Technology Park of St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" - TPEU was created in 1991. The purpose of the Technology Park is to create conditions favorable first of all for the organization, development and activity of small innovation structures (small firms), secondly for the accelerated industrial development of scientific research and design works, inventions and discoveries made by scientists, teachers, postgraduates and students of LETI, and at last for creation of competitive technologies, products and services and bringing them to consumers on a commercial basis.

  SLALEN Innovation Centre, Ukraine (Collapse)

  Innovation center SLALEN - is a public non-profit organization specializing in innovation management and technology transfer, IPR protection, evaluation and promotion of innovations, established in 2006 with the support of Co. Ltd Domstroy, Dnipropetrovs’k. The main aim of IC SLALEN – is to attract funding for innovative ideas, engineering and to take them to internal and external market. IC SLALEN uses in their work approach, based on supporting the chain “theorist – researcher-practitioner – researcher-engineer – technologist-production worker – marketing – seller” and at the same time luring in this process administration, press, bank and auxiliary manufacture. The main result of IC SLALEN practice is obtaining innovative products and implementation of scientific developments in the production made by our scientists and researchers from Dnipropetrovs’k and other Ukrainian regions.

  Vlatacom, Serbia (Collapse)

  After the market demand for handheld document readers has been recognized and analyzed, the VDR-Handheld project has been started and run with Vlatacom's own resources and finances with objective to keep a competitive edge and stay ahead of competition, as a recognized designer and manufacturer of machine-readable travel document (MRTD) readers. The aim was to develop and offer to the market, in shortest possible timeframe, a handheld, battery operated, ruggedized device for verification of travel and personal documents, reading of biometric data and identification of persons holding these documents, including the specialized optical scanner for e-Passport full page scanning with white, infrared and ultraviolet illumination, suitable for integration in such handheld device. The process involved four stages: first stage was research based on existing components and modules, second stage was research which included HW, SW and algorithm test environment development, next stage was feasibility study ending with successful functional model, and finally fourth stage was final product development stage ending with successful device prototype.

  Inland Automatic Identification System (AIS), Croatia (Collapse)

  Implementation of AIS network on the Croatian section of the rivers Danube and Drava, started in March 2006 and ended in March 2008, done by CRUP Ltd. Implementation was 90% co-funded by the European Union in the frame of INTERREG IIIA Slovenia-Hungary-Croatia Neighborhood Program; the rest 10% being local funding. Main objectives were improvement of cross-border mobility and accessibility in the border region on the Danube and Drava waterways and the development of accessible ICT technology that will have a future use in social and economic life of the defined area. Target groups were public authorities dealing with the inland waterway transport, navigation safety and environmental protection, as well as private sector involved in inland navigation such as ports, freight forwarders, fleet operators etc. Results were improvement of cross-border traffic and transport management, increase of safety and efficiency of inland navigation as well as making inland navigation more environment friendly type of transport.

  Basilicata Innovazione, Italy (Collapse)

  Basilicata Innovazione has been developed thanks to an accord between the regional government and AREA Science Park, the science and technology park of Trieste, signed in June 2009 with the aim of providing the regional territory with a permanent body useful to give services and instruments to sustain the enterprises competitiveness and to valorize the research. The accord allowed to transfer into Basilicata Region a model successfully tried by AREA, able to integrate and create a system with the realities already present and active: excellent research centers and dynamic productive companies, especially SMEs. Public funds (community, national and regional) have been used as financial resources. The initiative offers to the regional companies a direct point of access to the international applied research state of the art, to find skills, partners, funds and assistance useful to realize product, process and management innovation projects. The expected results are creation of new enterprises, increase of employment and regional economic development.

  Energy Harvesting, Austria (Collapse)

  Within the Austrian funded FIT IT Embedded Systems project ECO-SENSOR, project partners (Profactor, P?ttinger, University of Linz, Exler Elektronikentwicklung) break up the critical dependency of remote wireless sensor networks from traditional battery technology. Based on the concepts of retrieving electrical energy from vibrating machinery and enabling ultra-low power wireless transmission of arbitrary sensor information, the design of this embedded modular base unit opens a variety of technological challenges going far beyond state-of-the-art. Since ECO-SENSORs are energy-autonomous, no additional energy has to be provided for both, sensing operation and wireless transmission. The ECO-SENSOR project (i) enables the reliable integration of dense wireless sensor networks for optimal condition monitoring and process control, (ii) accelerates engineering and integration times by totally eliminating wiring efforts, (iii) increases operational machining safety, (iv) dramatically reduces machine break-downs and maintenance costs and (v) allows for accessing sensors in otherwise not reachable areas.

  TrackGPS, Romania (Collapse)

  Following the experience with international prestigious companies, AROBS started developing a series of software solutions for the local market: sales force automation (SFA) on PALM and PDA’s (Optimall by Arobs), GPS/GPRS (TrackGPS) fleet tracking / monitoring systems and tourism applications (ATOS/ABOS). TrackGPS Business, the fleet tracking / monitoring system, has been the most successful one – because of the growing necessity to make the fleet activities more efficient. TrackGPS Business, the vehicle tracking system, is helping thousands of fleet owners to drive down operating costs and increase earnings. It offers live vehicle tracking, fleet maintenance and risk management information to fleet operators of all sizes. There are over 500 companies with vehicle fleets in Romania that experience the benefits of reduced costs and increased productivity. Over 9,000 vehicles of all types are being monitored at the moment.

  Vacuum pressure control, Austria (Collapse)

  The 6th EU FW project Connect aimed to the research and development of the advanced platform for predictive control. After its development, the platform was evaluated by using it in several case-studies for different control problems at end users from project consortium. Case-studies and resulting prototypes for end users therefore represent further partial results of the project Connect. One of the case studies was the control system for plasma machine and it was developed by the Jozef Stefan Institute, the Department of Systems and Control for the company PlasmaIt, Austria, which produces the machines. Both partners were members of the project Connect consortium, the first one as RTD provider and the second one as end user. The research and laboratory prototype development of the vacuum pressure control system was performed and funded within the project Connect, while the final implementation was funded by PlasmaIt directly.

  Frozen Food Temperature Monitoring, Austria (Collapse)

  As of January 1st, 2010 the owner of a catering or gastronomy company has the obligation to record the temperature of his short-life food products during transportation and storage without a gap and has to keep the recordings for more than a year. The challenge was to develop a concept and a functional model which retrieves temperature readings from temperature sensors in refrigerating plants, analyze the recordings for eventual abnormalities to generate an alarm and archive the recordings in a database for a continuous report.

  Water Well Network, Romania (Collapse)

  Successful implementation of a project resulted from the collaboration between local authorities and governmental authorities, the funding of the project being supported by EU grants and cofinanced by the local authorities from Satu Mare, Romania. The objective was to extend the infrastructure regarding the drinking water, due to the population growth that was not anticipated when the existing infrastructure was first developed. The approach was to rehabilitate the water wells network for water collecting and to create a system for the monitoring and control of the whole process, with the purpose of increasing the capacity of delivering the raw water to the Station for the Treatment of Drinking Water, which delivers drinking water to the city and to the surrounding smaller towns. The results of the successful implementation of the project were the assurance of a minimum flow of 1200 m3/ h and a substantial improvement of water quality delivered to the Treatment Station, by reducing the suspensions in the water.

  Automated Footwear Production, Italy (Collapse)

  This Best Practice describes how a whole industrial sector (footwear sector) can be totally re-designed and improved with the support of technology and innovative ideas that redefine both productive processes and products. It, besides, shows that these initiatives are realizable with a strong cooperation between research, public investments and entrepreneurial initiative. The practice describes the creation of a pilot plant where new innovative and high technological equipments, tools, systems and processes, have been tested with the aim of raising the innovation level of the whole footwear sector.

  Flap type wavemaker, Bulgaria (Collapse)

  The “Flap type wavemaker” project was implemented in partnership with the Bulgarian Ship Hydrodynamisc Centre (BSHC). The funding was provided by the Centre in the form of assigned scientific and development task to AMK Ltd. The specificity of the assignment needed innovative approach, in order to achieve the expected result and engineering effect. The involved specialists from AMK Ltd. worked in close cooperation with their colleagues from the Institute and together came to certain conclusions, which later on, laid the foundation of the innovation. AMK Ltd. and the Centre implemented the developed innovation successfully and managed to put it into practice in a real working environment.

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First I3E Newsletter - June 2011

• Helping Maintain EU competive advantage (Collapse)

  Periods of economic turmoil highlight the need for change, so that economies become more competitive and enterprises increase their flexibility to withstand global competition. Innovation plays a key role in safeguarding the competitive advantages of Europe. I3E project promotes innovation in the area of South East Europe (SEE) focusing on the sectors of embedded systems and industrial informatics, two sectors of strategic importance for Europe. Almost half of the top European industries perform embedded systems research, while European manufacturing sector contributes around 22% of European GDP. SEE is a dynamically growing area that is currently mostly characterised by developing inexpensive labour economies. With a GDP growth twice the EU average and a GDP per capita less than half the EU average, the area experiences the challenge to narrow the gap towards developed European economies. Investing in the new-market economy and promoting innovation is expected to facilitate the fulfilment of this challenge. SEE has a significant R&D critical mass in the sectors of embedded systems and industrial informatics, characterised by good human potential as a result of efficient education. Yet, research teams often do not align their activities at a transnational level, appearing thus distributed and less effective. Furthermore, there is a missing link towards entrepreneurship and innovation both at national and transnational level. The I3E project addresses the above challenges through two major outputs: a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) in the aforementioned sectors and a Methodology Guide on Innovation (MGI). The SRA is built taking into account similar European experiences and bringing them down to the individual needs of the SEE. Local consensus in the SEE countries among research teams both in industry and academia contributes the local research vision to the SRA. Promoting the SRA towards policy makers in the SEE area is expected to influence state research funding and help the different countries in the area align their research potential towards common goals, thus increasing the overall visibility of the SEE area on the European research map. The MGI builds on top of Best Practices relevant to the transformation of research into innovation and will provide guidelines on how mature research results may lead to innovative products and services. Innovation may be viewed as the research pay-back to the society through increasing competitiveness, quality of life, employment and environmental friendliness. The I3E project has a partnership of 14 partners from 8 SEE countries and is expected to run until May 2012.

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• Consensus Building in South East Europe (Collapse)

  Building a Strategic Research Agenda in an area like South East Europe presents a big challenge due to the heterogeneity and diversity of nations and their historical and economic development. In order to be efficient, I3E partners were engaged in a wide Consensus Building campaign trying to bring the majority of important stakeholders of the area around the same table and discuss their vision with reference to the sectors of Embedded Systems and Industrial Informatics. Seventeen Consensus Building meetings have been held in the period October 2009—December 2010 in the different partner countries attracting the attention of about 500 persons coming from academia / research organisations as well as enterprises / SMEs and the public sector. Feedback from these meetings has been used for the elaboration of a draft Strategic Research Agenda that may be downloaded from the project portal.

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• A Database of 120 Good Practices collected in the context of the project (Collapse)

  The I3E partnership has collected 120 Good Practices relevant to the transformation of research to innovation. The Good Practices collected are relevant to research results that are efficiently transformed to innovative products or services or leading to an innovative methodology or to an innovative production process. Several of them focus on the financing mechanisms that are used for the transformation of research to innovation. Other detail support mechanisms that made this transformation effective. A wiki database has been elaborated comprising all 120 successful experiences collected by I3E. This database may be accessed from the project portal. Assessment of these Good Practices will provide a short list of Best Practices that will be analyzed and will provide content for the I3E Methodology Guide on Innovation.

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