ARIES and Industry
by Livia Lapadatescu (CERN)
Collaboration between academia and industry has long been a hot topic in many R&D projects, but for the first time in an accelerator Integrating Activity project there is a consistent industrial participation. In ARIES, the new H2020 Integrating Activity on “Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society”, industry has become a crucial partner in achieving common R&D objectives and in identifying and further exploring industrial and societal applications of accelerators.
The ARIES consortium includes eight industrial partners contributing to activities such as the development of accelerator applications, materials for extreme thermal management, HT superconductors, timing electronics, and acting as consultants on the activity of the innovation work package.
The reasoning behind having industry as partners was to provide academia with more information about the market demands, moving from the old “technology push” to a new “market pull” approach. ARIES set two targets for the collaboration with industry: short/medium term goals and long-term goals.
Short & Medium term goals aim to breach the gap of innovation. ARIES proposes three pillars of innovation to achieve these goals:
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The Proof of Concept Fund to support perspective studies/projects on industrial application of the ARIES technology;
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Academia meets Industry events to encourage the networking between academia and industry on ARIES related subjects;
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Projects co-run with industry in the work package on “Promoting Innovation”.
Long term goals aim to create a common language and a common working ground between academia and industry.
Schematic representation of the ARIES collaboration with industry (Credit: Livia Lapadatescu, CERN)
The first ARIES Industrial Meeting took place during the project kick-off meeting on 5 May 2017 at CERN. The meeting brought together about 40 participants, with large industrial participation, to discuss the involvement of industry in ARIES, how to enhance the collaboration with industry, and possible future actions.
A follow-up meeting will be organized in Brussels at the end of 2017 with the aim of collecting success stories for industrial collaboration and innovation from both industry and the European Commission. This will help to identify ways for further industrial involvement in the future Research Infrastructures programmes of the European Commission.
