The meeting of the International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) of the TECHSCALE project provided valuable feedback and recommendations.
The evaluation of both the activities carried out so far and the planned steps was the focus of the second meeting of the ISAB with the supervisors of the Work packages (WPs) of the TECHSCALE project, who presented the current results of their research teams. Members of the ISAB subsequently offered specific recommendations for enhancing the project’s efficiency. They praised the high quality of the results achieved by the team within a rather short period of time.
“Despite some challenges that the team had to overcome in the first half of the year, I assess the overall progress of the project very optimistically. We are moving in the right direction, and we have made significant progress in research,” stated Michal Otyepka, the project’s scientific manager, who presented the current status of the project, the scientific milestones reached, and detailed analyses of the project’s indicators to the ISAB members. He also provided an update on the implementation of the recommendations from the previous ISAB meeting, which took place exactly one year ago.
A key part of the meeting was the presentations by the leaders of the individual WPs, who provided detailed descriptions of the current status and key breakthroughs in their research. Major achievements include nanomaterials and technologies that go beyond the current limits of nanomaterials, as well as the ongoing integration of research not only across individual research initiatives but also across different scientific disciplines. According to ISAB members, this collaboration is crucial for maintaining scientific excellence and ensuring the practical application of research results.
To further improve the project, the meeting participants discussed opportunities for expanding the project, including the recruitment of new staff, implementing a communication strategy that will bring the project and its results closer to the public, the potential incorporation of AI and operando techniques into the research activities, and the need to develop a detailed plan for mobility and career growth of researchers.
“ISAB also recommended focusing on the protection of research results, analyzing opportunities for patenting, and utilizing infrastructure for sharing project tools. The second ISAB meeting was highly productive and inspiring and opened up new directions for further development and innovation within the TECHSCALE project. We consider the feedback from the advisory board to be crucial for the success of the project,” stated Sylva Kaděrková, the project manager.
The ISAB is an independent advisory board in the areas of strategy and evaluation of the project’s expert team. Its members include, in addition to its chairman Paolo Fornasier, a leading expert in catalysis from the University of Trieste, the Executive Director of the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Srinivasan Madhavi, the Research Director of the CLEAN Centre at Normandy University, Svetlana Mintova, the Executive Director of the National Research Foundation in Singapore, Subodh Mhaisalkar, Mathias Beller, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock, Germany, and the application sector is represented by Roberto Millini from the Italian company Eni S.p.A.
Project TECHSCALE (No. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004587) is financed by the MEYS OP JAC Excellent research programme, supported by ERDF/ESF.