The 2nd General Assembly and the 3rd Management Board Meeting of the SFERA-III - Solar Facilities for the European Research Area - Third Phase, took place in Cassacia, Italy, between 11 and 13 February. Over the course of three days, representatives of the 15 partner institutions of the project, from nine member countries of the European Union (EU), discussed the functioning and activities of SFERA-III and the cooperation between academy and companies.
At the beginning of the work, the main focus was on areas of management and coordination, training and capacity building, scientific and technological exchange, transnational activities and communication and dissemination. In a second phase, the work focused on technical components, with approaches to test procedures for materials and components of thermal storage systems and for new technological concepts for solar desalination and water treatment facilities, dynamic control and diagnostics of integrated systems for the production of solar fuels, monitoring physical properties of the receiver materials at the focal point of concentrated solar facilities, or sensor calibrations and techniques for accurate determination of performance parameters of prototypes installed in research infrastructures.
The last day was dedicated to an exploratory seminar on cooperation between companies and academy. Topics such as models of cooperation, partnership and establishment of cooperation, transfer of intellectual property, and financing and financial planning were the subject of debate. This seminar was held by Péter Mogyorósi, from LC Innoconsult International.
SFERA-III is a Horizon 2020 project, financed by the Research Infrastructure Programme, under development for four years, until December 2022, coordinated by the Plataforma Solar de Almería, of the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT- PSA), from Spain.
