“This is the era of transferring knowledge into innovation”, said KTU’s Vice-Rector for Research Asta Pundziene, “therefore we are financially encouraging the interdisciplinary research, so as the researchers from different University’s departments had the possibility to test their ideas”. 15 interdisciplinary projects were introduced at the conference last week.
According to Pundzienė, the institutional funding “buys” time fom researchers from different fields and departments, allowing them to look for joint solutions to problems, and to test their ideas.
“The projects, which were introduced today, can become a draft for future applications for national or international funding, can encourage collaboration with business. This, in turn, can lead to more mature technologies and innovations”, Pundzienė is convinced.
Applying for national or international funding requires some solid base – the researchers must have clearly defined goals and to declare the expected results. It takes time, therefore, the initial funding for the crystallization of ideas is necessary.
15 interdisciplinary projects brought into collaboration researchers from Materials’ Science, Ultrasound Research institutes, Real Time Computer Systems Centre, faculties of Chemical Technology, Civil Engineering, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, School of Economics and Business and other departments.
The topics of the projects ranged from 3D printing in construction sites to designing fresh packing material for food, from creating materials for organic LEDs to using computer tomography on testing the quality of concrete. The researchers discussed the possibilities of creating a risk lab at KTU, the categories of mobile app usability, the options and possibilities of smart grid controls and other topics, requiring interdisciplinary solutions.
The interdisciplinary board of researchers has chosen two projects as the most promising and awarded their leaders a trip to the Information Days event of the Horizon 2020 programme in Brussels. The awarded projects were: OLED-nano: Construction of New Nanostructured Organic LED’s by Gintautas Bagdžiūnas (Faculty of Chemical Technology) and MicroSound: Creation of Calibrating Block for Acoustic Microscope by Tomas Tamulevičius (Institute of Materials Science).
