Brokerage event for applications to EU centralised calls

Green technologies, energy and digitalisation for a sustainable future

"GREAT MINDS, GREAT IDEAS - BUT NO MAN IS AN ISLAND"

Despite an individual’s great talent and ideas, networking plays a crucial role in the development and successful delivery of EU-centralized projects. It facilitates the formation of meaningful partnerships, the exchange of ideas, and the acquisition of valuable support. Keeping this in mind, we have organized a networking event as part of the KRPAN project, bringing together researchers from academia and industry to discuss “Green Technologies, Energy, and Digitalization for a Sustainable Future”.

Researchers from 14 countries at brokerage event

Within the KRPAN project, the University of Ljubljana organized a brokerage event Green technologies, Energy and Digitalisation for a Sustainable Future on 15 February 2024. The event drew participation from 70 researchers, research advisors, and company representatives representing 14 European countries. In addition to Slovenia, participants came from Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Germany, Norway, Romania, North Macedonia and Serbia.

The event, that took place at the Four Points by Sheraton Ljubljana Mons, presented 26 new and potentially ground-breaking ideas for future European projects. New contacts have been established between the presenters of the project ideas and the remaining participants with the aim of upgrading research and innovative ideas and establishing consortia for applying for centralized European calls.

In his opening speech, Vice-Rector Prof. Dr. Anton Ramšak emphasized the importance of this inaugural brokerage event organized by the University of Ljubljana. He emphasized its role as a platform for interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral networking and as a means of promoting our researchers within the European research landscape.

REASONS FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION

The networking event offers an excellent opportunity to connect with researchers and institutions in the field of green technologies or energy for a sustainable future. It provides a platform to potentially form consortia for upcoming international calls under the Horizon Europe (HE) programme and other European programmes, focusing on themes such as digital, industry and space, and climate, energy, and mobility.

Participants and interested parties will have the chance to expand their networks through “speed networking” and one-to-one meetings. These interactions aim to identify collaboration opportunities and foster the formation of consortia for Horizon Europe project applications.

The primary objective of the networking event is to serve as a breeding ground for new ideas for future EU projects. This involves presentations showcasing potential and groundbreaking ideas from researchers in both academia and industry.

Simultaneously, the event serves the following purposes:

facilitating networking among researchers from Slovenian research organizations,
establishing connections with businesses and foreign universities and research organisations, such as EUTOPIA, The GUILD, etc.,
forming new consortium partnerships,
fostering existing consortium partnerships.

PROGRAMME

The programme is designed to allow you to present your ideas and interact with other speakers and participants. Invited participants include educators, researchers from the University of Ljubljana and Slovenia, and representatives of companies interested in applying for Horizon Europe (especially Pillar II, Cluster 4 and 5) and other centralised EU programmes. This will enrich the programme with a wide range of interesting speakers, promising ideas and diverse participants. Take this opportunity to network with a community of researchers working in similar fields. Below you can see the programme of the event.

WHO THE EVENT IS FOR AND HOW TO PARTICIPATE?

The event is aimed at researchers and business representatives from Slovenia and Europe interested in applying for Horizon Europe and other centralised EU programmes.

Join us in shaping the future!

The registration for the event has been closed.

SPEAKERS

Prof. dr. Vlado Stankovski

Vlado Stankovski is a full professor of computer and information science at University of Ljubljana, Faculty of computer and information science. He participated in several national and international projects, in the consortium of the Supercomputer Center of Slovenia, in the IQ DOM smart specialization project, and in the software engineering clusters of the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects as a representative of the ENTICE, SWITCH, and DECENTER projects. Vlado Stankovski is the scientific and technical coordinator of the pan-European Next Generation Internet ONTOCHAIN and TRUSTCHAIN projects. These two projects feature over 100 advanced software technologies sub-projects. He currently participates in the European projects BUILDCHAIN, EBSI-VECTOR, ExtremeXP, ACES, and Swarmchestrate. Vlado Stankovski is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Destination Earth (DestinE) flagship initiative of the European Commission.

M. Sc. Elina Wanne

The development manager for sustainable energy at the city of Espoo, Elina Wanne, has a versatile background in various sustainability positions connected to materials, construction and cities. Elina was representing Espoo in the preparation phase of the H2020 project SPARCS and worked in SPARCS as Lighthouse City Espoo project manager from the beginning of the project until December 2022, focusing now on Espoo replication and collaboration. Building trust and fruitful collaboration with not just Espoo consortium but with all 30 partners across Europe has been in the heart of her work in SPARCS. The City of Espoo is the second largest city in Finland and one of the European Commission’s 100 climate-neutral and smart cities. In SPARCS, we have been researching carbon emissions of various energy solutions, supporting the city’s ambitious target to become carbon-neutral by 2030.

Assist. prof. dr. Draško Veselinovič

Assist. prof. dr. Draško Veselinovič has been President of the Board of the Slovenian Business and Research Association in Brussels since 2014. Before that, he had many CEO positions in international financial institutions like Ljubljana Stock Exchange (its founder in 1989), Dezelna banka Slovenije, NLB, KD Group. Since 1986, he has been, besides his main job, a parallel researcher and professor of different financial subjects at the University of Ljubljana and Gea College – also a visiting professor at the Ghent University, London School of Economics, Vienna University, etc. He has over 600 bibliographic items registered in his name, among others 6 books on foreign exchange markets, financial (capital) markets, stock exchanges and financial derivatives.

Julia Schmalenberg

Since January 2021, Julia Schmalenberg works as Director European R&I Ecosystem at Huawei and facilitates Huawei’s contribution to Europe’s twin transition. Her goal is to implement Huawei’s “In Europe, for Europe” paradigm by facilitating collaborative R&I projects across Europe and contributing to the European R&I ecosystem. Sparking, facilitating and accelerating innovation has been the driver for Julia Schmalenberg ever since the beginning of her university studies. During her career she had the opportunity to look at innovation from different angles and perspectives – from start-up to corporate, from research to industry, from local to international and from theory to practice. She holds a degree with distinction both in Legal Studies (Dipl.-Jur.) with a focus on IPR and competition law from the University of Passau and Cardiff and in Technology Management (Dipl.-Ing.) from the University of Stuttgart.

CALLS FOR PROPOSALS

The event will mainly address some of the Horizon Europe Cluster 4: Digital, Industry and Space and Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility calls under Pillar II, the thematically relevant EU Missions (Adapting to Climate Change and Climate Neutral and Smart Cities) and the New European Bauhaus, as well as the calls of some other European programmes, such as the Digital Europe Programme, focusing on the cross-cutting themes of the Green Transition and Sustainable Development.

More on EU calls at THIS LINK and in THE SPREADSHEET.

MORE INFORMATION

Location of the event: Four Points by Sheraton Ljubljana Mons

Contact: krpan@uni-lj.si / +386 1 2418 696

The event is organised in the framework of the KRPAN project “Strengthening Research Support and Activities to Advance European Research Projects”, co-funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and the European Union – NextGenerationEU.