Backing new ideas for tomorrow’s economy Europe is home to talented scientists and has a sophisticated research infrastructure, yet many new ideas with commercial potential are still not translated into practical applications. We spoke to Professor Sergio Bertolucci about how the ATTRACT project is funding disruptive research that he hopes will help create jobs and boost the European economy.
There are sophisticated
research facilities dotted across Europe, at which scientists continue to explore new ideas and develop a wide variety of innovative technologies, from nanomaterials, to quantum sensors, to self-powering cameras. However, despite the overall strength of European science, many research advances are still not translated into practical applications, an issue at the heart of the ATTRACT project. “A few years ago I was part of a group which started reflecting on how we could put together an essentially bottom-up mechanism to connect research and innovation,” outlines Sergio Bertolucci, Professor of Physics at the University of Bologna, who chairs the Independent Scientific Advisory Committee (R&D&I) of ATTRACT. These discussions led to the formation of ATTRACT, a consortium that aims to facilitate the emergence of bottom-up breakthrough ideas co-developed by researchers and entrerpreneurs. “Essentially we established a consortium composed by major European research institutions (CERN, EMBL, ESRF, ESO, ILL, E-XFEL), EIRMA (the European Industrial Research Management Association), and two Universities particularly engaged in innovation, ESADE and AALTO,” explains Professor Bertolucci. “We than engaged in a fruitful discourse with the European Commission, which funded the project in the framework of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme ” The project is inspired to a degree by earlier analysis of how certain areas like Silicon Valley have established an environment that encourages scientific innovation and turns it into practical applications. While Europe has a strong scientific heritage and great cultural diversity, it is losing ground to global competitors, and Professor Bertolucci believes action is needed to regain it. “We need scale, funds, and more appetite for innovation and risk,” he says. The challenge
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here is to make better use of Europe’s vast intellectual resources, and translate Open Science into Open Innovation, where the commercial potential of new knowledge is realised. “Open Science means an ecosystem where a researcher’s idea can freely circulate, with the right balance between collaboration and competition,” explains Professor Bertolucci. “They don’t patent their findings or keep them secret, but rather make them available to the scientific community.”
ATTRACT project This ideal of Open Science has largely been achieved within Europe, now the ATTRACT project is supporting innovative research projects, with the ultimate aim of helping bring new ideas closer to practical application and boosting the wider economy. Some 170 research projects have received funding of €100,000 within ATTRACT, all of which bring together industry and the academic sector. “These projects are collaborative,” stresses Professor Bertolucci. The priority is to fund disruptive
research and back the development of radical ideas and innovations, generally at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 1-3. “Many of these projects have a potential industrial application, such as developing new sensors based on nanotechnology for use in healthcare. There are also several projects in diagnostics, with research into imaging, for both CT scans and X-rays,” continues Professor Bertolucci. “ And there are also interesting projects in robotics and in smart applications based on Artificial Intelligence” The initial funding gave researchers the opportunity to explore and develop their ideas, after which they were asked to submit a report and conduct a presentation showing their findings. When all 170 projects have completed their deliverables, Professor Bertolucci and his colleagues will look to identify which should receive further support. “We will select a number of projects, those with the potential to proceed up to TRL 7 or even higher, or those that are particularly disruptive,” he
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