Innovation live: researchers and business managers come together at the CENILS conference (Press review)

Innovative light sources, such as Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste’s FERMI free electron laser, can be described as exceptionally powerful microscopes. The unique instruments provide snapshots of the structure, composition and interaction of materials ranging from those available in nature to the exotic ones that are conceived and fabricated by people. Which concrete, practical problems can be solved by these light sources? In what ways do they serve business and innovation?

This was the topic of discussion on Thursday, April 10, 2014, during the first CENILS workshop, which brought together in Trieste representatives from European research centres, universities, and the industrial sector in order to discuss cutting-edge technologies in the analysis of materials and, more broadly, innovation and competitiveness. Another topic targeted the opportunities for funding research projects in these fields provided by the Horizon 2020 Programme. 

The  initiative is promoted by CENILS (Central European Network for knowledge based on Innovative Light Sources): a European project that joins the business and research worlds in a single network, encourages them to work together on technologies that use innovative light sources, and explores the market opportunities brought about by their use in a wide array of fields, such as biology, medicine, biotechnology, the environment, and materials science.

The CENILS project, coordinated by the Italian partner Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, based at AREA Science Park, also involves the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia and other universities and small and medium enterprises in Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. 

“I am particularly happy and pleased about this initiative – commented Giovanni De Ninno, a physicist at Elettra and Team Leader of the CENILS project – because of the authoritativeness of the people attending, who are working on some of Europe’s leading research and technology projects; its concrete nature, fully in keeping with the spirit of CENILS; and the direct dialogue it establishes between two world that are all too often far apart, such as those of academia and industry. We are a sort of innovation laboratory at work”. 

Workshop’s programme: http://www.cenils.eu/event/cenils-1st-workshop