Research Excellence for Region Sustainability and High-Tech Industries (REFRESH)
Importance for the region
The REFRESH project is a “flagship” project and a key instrument for the implementation of the SMARAGD vision. It is a major investment to strengthen research excellence in the Moravian-Silesian Region. The project will build a unique European infrastructure for research and technology transfer in the fields of sustainable energy, digitalisation of industrial production, automation in transport, environmental technologies or smart material technologies.
Other partners of the project include a number of small and medium-sized companies, as well as large industrial players who have promised to participate in the project. These companies include Cylinders Holding, ČEZ, Siemens, ŠKODA AUTO, T-Mobile Czech Republic, VALEO Autoclimatisation and Veolia Energie ČR.
- In the short term, the R&D centre will be built with a top research infrastructure in a pan-European context. Thanks to the involvement of the partner (University of Ostrava), a unique link between technical and social science research will be established
- In the medium term, new technologies will be introduced into the corporate environment in the region and new firms will be created. The concept of living labs will be used as a key tool, enabling shared research space with corporate partners with an emphasis on end-user requirements and rapid technology transfer into practice. The concept will lead to increased internationalisation and strengthening of excellence in science and research, the inflow of students to the region and their involvement in the transformation process, or the creation of new study programmes related to the priority areas of the project.
- In the long term, thanks to the implementation of the individual researches, the revitalization of the post-coal landscape (removal of old ecological burdens) is expected, securing the energy self-sufficiency of the region through clean energy and renewable sources. New technologies will lead to the optimisation of industrial production (emission-free technologies, automation and robotics, waste recycling) with a huge potential for expanding production capacities and the involvement of skilled labour and blue-collar professions.
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