Closing of the Baltic TRAM project and lessons learnt
Baltic TRAM (Transnational Research Access in the Macroregion) was an international project which seeked to strengthen the relationship between analytical research institutions and business, and linked expertise to concrete industrial needs. The project operated in the Baltic Sea Region during 3/2016-2/2019.
The Baltic TRAM project closed on February 28th, 2019
Interesting results from the project activities can be found from the Baltic TRAM Open Data Portal where a selection of industry cases are presented as detailed examples showcasing industrial development challenges, analysis methods used to solve the challenge and main results.
Baltic TRAM was led by DESY, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, in dialogue with 14 project partners, including University of Turku, and 5 associated organisations from across the Baltic Sea Region. The project was partly funded by the European Union. Read more on Baltic TRAM official web page.
The project main results include:
The Baltic TRAM project established a network of universities and research institutes that improves cooperation with industry. 11 of 14 partners (plus one associated partner) want to continue working together on the network and have signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The IReC network has potential of transforming into an operational research-to-business and business-to-research tool.
Research vouchers for SMEs could address the need of SMEs to get access to state-of-the-art scientific services through government programs and support SMEs' access to research institutes and universities. The idea of introducing a system of research vouchers is supported by most of the flagship projects in PA Innovation. PA Innovation will start a Greenfield initiative for further discussion of this idea with responsible stakeholders.
The business pilot activities within the Baltic TRAM project included two types of testing:
(1) SME experiments
The pilot activities within the project, with 68 applications for industrial measurements, have shown a need for an expansion of industrial services at research institutes and universities. Especially SMEs - with a share of 94 % - have used the offer. 70 per cent of all measurements were done within one country. However, with 30% transnational measurements, a great need for international exchange was also demonstrated. The international exchange of measurements has been balanced between East and West. This may reduce brain drain of scientists from East to West if they execute scientific services in their home places. The project
- stimulated innovation and research intensity across the local, regional and national research and business landscapes through guiding companies to RPOs.
- enabled knowledge transfer on a transnational and trans regional scale by “tapping” international expertise.
- supported the aspirations of the European Research Area and strengthened the Baltic Sea Region.
(2) The Open data pilot (Access to the open data portal is at https://opendataportal.utu.fi and to the case studies at https://opendataportal.utu.fi/experiments.
The open data pilot was planned as a first effort within the Baltic TRAM project to experiment with the demand for data re-use. This task proved more time-demanding than initially anticipated. However, the open data pilot was set up and out of the 68 experiments, 32 case studies were contributed to the portal and analysed.
