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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CEZAMAT-Environment (CEZAMAT-Environment - Self-Organizing Networks for Real-Time, Wireless Monitoring ofNatural Environment)

Teaser

The CEZAMAT-Environment project is a response to European Commission call WIDESPREAD-1-2014: Teaming, of the call H2020-WIDESPREAD-2014. This project responds to the work program “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation”, which aims to reduce internal research and...

Summary

The CEZAMAT-Environment project is a response to European Commission call WIDESPREAD-1-2014: Teaming, of the call H2020-WIDESPREAD-2014. This project responds to the work program “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation”, which aims to reduce internal research and innovation disparities within the European Union by supporting research and innovation activities and systems in low performing countries. The project addresses a specific challenge defined by the work program – namely, the presence of substantial disparities in the European Research and Innovation landscape.
Since last decade EC has observed increasing differences among Member States in terms of research and innovation performance. Among many reasons for those disparities lack of critical mass of science and insufficient number of scientific institutions on high level of excellence seemed to be the most urgent problem to be solved.
As a respond to those problems European Commission decided to start “Teaming for Excellence” competition. The aim of the call was to create high level Centre of Excellence in those countries which innovativeness level is not satisfactionary.
It was stated that by increasing number of Centres of Excellence with high scientific potential in those countries that has low factor of innovation may result in achieving slow but sustain innovative growth.
Moreover, spreading scientific excellence from more advanced countries to member states that struggle with low innovation of their economy may help those countries to overcome financial crisis that may happen in Europe. This will help those regions to become more competitive in national and international markets.
In the first phase of the competition beneficiaries in partnership with Partners of Excellence had to prepare high quality business plan for the new Centre of Excellence. This report is about realisation phase one of the project CEZAMAT-Environment.

Work performed

The project was realized by the partnership of 4 entities: NCBR from Poland, CEZAMAT Sp. Z o.o also from Poland, CEA-Tech from France and FhG from Germany. The action was coordinated by National Centre for Research and Development, CEZAMAT Sp. Z o.o played a role of the leader, and CEA-Tech and FhG was sharing their experience as a Partners of Excellence. Together Consortium members finalized the first phase of Teaming for Excellence competition, created professional business plan and submit the proposal for the second ToE phase.

All the partners were in constant contact by e-mail and phone but main progress in project realisation was conducted during project meetings when partners could discuss final shape of the business plan and exchange their experience and good practices. During the period of project realisation 6 meeting was held: Warsaw – Kick-off meeting (2nd June), Warsaw (22nd October), Grenoble (27th-28th January), Dresden (14th-15th May), Płock (11th-12th May), Grenoble (24th-25th May).
All the partners workout and signed Consortium Agreement in which all the tasks and responsibility for the work packages were evenly distributed between consortium members.
NCBR was designated to the project consortium as a government body that will ensure governmental support for the new CoE. NCBR’s role in the project was to provide compliance with grant and consortium agreements, ensure that all deliverables submitted to EC are highest possible quality, serve as a communication point with EC. However NCBR was not directly involved in each technical tasks (apart of several exceptions, stated in the proposal and confirmed in SGA).
From NCBR project coordinators were assigned. The first coordinator was Ms. Joanna Misiewicz, responsible for submitting the proposal for “Teaming” phase 1, preparing grant agreement with European Commission and working out consortium agreement between partners. For the first few months of the first phase of project Ms. Misiewicz organised the management structure in consortium and the first kick-off meetings.
In December 2015 she was replaced by Mr. Jan Osiński. Mr. Osiński continued project progress by organising consortium meetings and conducting discussion between partners. He was responsible for final shape of the business plan and proposal for the second stage of the “Teaming for Excellence” competition.
During project realisation it was also decided that the NCBR will remain project partner in the 1st stage. Once the project is successful in the 2nd stage, the NCBR will withdraw its participation from the consortium.

CEZAMAT Sp. z o.o was the main beneficiary of the consortium and leading entity. The Project leaders were assigned from this institution. First project leader was Prof. Bartosz Grzybowski. According to his vison and his team, the first proposal for the teaming phase 1 was created and successfully passed evaluation. Together with partners, they were responsible for preparation work packages and Gant table. Despite his engagement in project realization during the meeting in Warsaw it was said that according to his obligation in his current office in Korea he is unable to commit to the project in satisfactory level. After long talks with Partners of Excellence about future consortium shape the Steering Committee made a decision to engage into the project Prof. Tomasz Woliński – Head of Optics and Photonics Division of the Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, who was involved in the initial activities of the teaming phase 1 cooperating with CEZAMAT. The change of the project leader significantly influenced on its final shape. A new vision of the project was presented to partners during the first meeting in Grenoble in January 2016. All partners accepted Prof. Woliński as the new project leader and approved his new vision of CEZAMAT-Environment. Prof. Woliński and his team were responsible for adopting changes into project, preparation of the rest of

Final results

In the long-term perspective, the Center will implement within its own structure and then promote to the entire region of Mazovia the best practices in research, innovation and management resulting in significant improvement of this Region’s research and innovation culture. Special attention will be paid to technology transfer and research commercialization, which have been identified as weak points of low performing countries, and particularly of Poland.
The Environmental Internet we propose to develop will entail large-scale team effort – in other words, the challenge cannot be tackled by any individual research group or even by several groups but working independently. The achieve the Center’s objectives a critical mass of scientists and engineers must be unified around one common goal – this is precisely how we envision the Center to operate, under one roof, in a highly collaborative fashion, and with cross-fertilization between multiple disciplines.
The project results will engage Mazovia and Poland on a unique path of innovative growth. As well as technical innovations will give rise to a family of hi-tech products that are unique, we assume to impose scientific-business relations allowing to establish first in Poland unit for excellence that will cooperate and support industry in wide scale. With every technology that is both innovative and unique, there is a strong possibility for commercialization, for creating a cluster of spin-offs, and for expending the original know-how into a technology in which a given country/region specializes. Through our research, we aim to position Mazovia and Poland on a global map as a leader of environmental monitoring for the 21st century. Our technologies will provide the first example of a technology that originated from Poland to gain world pre-eminence.
To achieve these ambitious goals and to foster Mazovia’s economic growth, CEZAMAT-Environment will from its inception
(i) protect the intellectual property it generates;
(ii) popularize its inventions through both professional and popular press/media;
(iii) seek institutional and private/VC investors for establishing spin-off companies and
(iv) sign licensing agreements with external organizations.
It is through these spin-offs originating from our Center and licensing agreements that various modalities of the Environmental Internet will ultimately be commercialized establishing a significant number of high-tech jobs located in Mazovia and, ultimately, also sustaining the Center financially beyond the five-year period of EU funding (details of the commercialization strategy are described in the Business Plan part of the Proposal).
The vision and the mission of our Center are well aligned with the EU-promulgated Smart Specialization Strategy of the Mazovian region (http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu). The Strategy selects five industrial sectors (chemistry, medicine, agriculture, energy, IT) and five leading technologies (biotechnology, nanotechnology, IT, photonics, electronics) as the focal points of Mazovia’s innovation-based economy of the future. Our proposal responds to four of these technologies (chemistry, agriculture, IT, photonics) and all lead-technologies. Furthermore, the Strategy delineates four Specialization Areas of which three are directly related to CEZAMAT-Environment activities: “Safe Foods,” “Intelligent Management Systems” (including “smart networks” and “resource-efficient systems”) and “Quality of Life” (including “Human Health”). Indeed, the Environmental Internet we propose to develop will be a smart network continuously monitoring Mazovia’s soil, forests, and orchards to detect and counter any threats that could adversely impact quality of food and/or human health.
Additionaly realisation of the project bring additional value if it comes to increase level of cooperation beatween Polish scientific institution and institutions from more advance in terms of innovative

Website & more info

More info: http://environment.cezamat.eu/.