Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ESPESA (Strengthening the Research potential of CAREESD in the field of Electromechanical Systems and Power Electronics for Sustainable Applications)
Berichtszeitraum: 2017-03-01 bis 2018-11-30
The activities performed in the frame of ESPESA during the reporting period were organized into four categories:
- Short-time visits, facilitating the collaborative research, facilities sharing, new knowledge sharing/gaining experience new work environment.,
- Conference attendance, for networking and dissemination of the research work results;
- Exchange forums, as training events focused on a very specific and narrow topic;
- Training events as an important mechanism to reduce, if not eliminate, the gap between UTCN-CAREESD and the other ESPESA participants. Training equipped CAREESD researchers with knowledge and skills and encouraged them to build and enhanced their capabilities. Careful training needs assessment at CAREESD was performed priory developing ESPESA training events agenda.
The achievements of the ESPESA implementation for the reporting period are listed below:
- 25 researchers (8 females) conducted short visits for improving their research work through knowledge and facilities sharing;
- 2 exchange forums were organized;
- 8 training events were organized;
- 3 proposals were submitted under Horizon 2020 (one was funded, one is under evaluation and one was rejected);
The activities performed under ESPESA had an important impact on CAREESD level. Strengthening the research potential by collaborative research with top-level research institutions in Europe and performing advanced scientific work led to the consolidation of CAREESD position among other R&D centres in UTCN and in Romania. CAREESD is the biggest R&D research centre in UTCN and one of the largest academia R&D centres in Romania. Moreover, the development of a TT&IM strategy, based on a serious market analysis, provided a new vision at CAREESD, increasing the perspectives for future industrial implementation of the R&D results. We envisage that CAREESD will apply for funds (using Cohesion Funds as funding scheme) in order to create and implement a start-up or a spin-off company at UTCN focused on engineering services in the field of ESPE for a wide range of applications, extending it from energy and transport to industrial and medical/health application.
ESPESA represented an important step forward in the participation of CAREESD, and UTCN implicitly, as important partner in setting-up new collaborative projects, under national and European calls, but also directly with industrial actors. Moreover, ESPESA demonstrated that a solid background and a well-structure R&D strategy led to important funds attraction (see Section 1.2.5 and Annex 3) and as consequence made CAREESD more attractive for the undergraduates and graduates and motivate them to follow a R&D career in Romania. Two PhD graduates are involved in the R&D projects at CAREESD, 7 new PhD students and 8 master students joined CAREESD in the last 2 years.
The implementation of ESPESA had a significant impact on the development of new advanced technologies for electromechanical systems and power electronics for energy and transport applications for CAREESD, but also for its ESPESA partners. In addition, results of the proposed research work added important knowledge in emerging technologies like high speed machines, high frequency power converter, renewable energies-based conversion systems, alternative EV/HEV power sources applications, smart grid technologies, etc. These led to enhanced number of presentations at international conferences (53) and publication of scientific papers in indexed and cited international journals (12) and more active participation in future relevant European research activities.