From what we hear, the calls for proposals will be ready at the end of this year or early next year. We should therefore start putting our heads together and come up with possible societal issues our research can focus on and collaboration possibilities with the industry.
In the middle of May, the Faculty held a kick-off seminar to gather the troops and shed light on challenges and possibilities with the upcoming calls for SFI proposals, which is the fifth of its kind. Vice Rector Per Morten Sandset held the introduction, and we had many engaged participants from most of our Departments. There is no doubt that UiO has high ambitions for innovation and MN is going to be in the forefront. Our goal is to host one or two new SFI’s.
At the kick-off seminar, the SFI Coordinator at the Research Council of Norway, Liv Jorunn Jenssen, gave a short presentation of the SFI initiative, its evaluation and future optimization. The evaluation report (pdf) shows that the SFI initiative is here to stay. Its main conclusion is that the initiative has succeeded in competence building and recruiting researchers in areas of great importance for the Norwegian industry. And the industry is very satisfied. However, the evaluation also shows that it needs further development in the areas of innovation and internationalization in addition to the possibilities that digitalization and reorganization gives. It also points out that the collaboration between the industry and the research institutions is not as effective as desired and that the balance between research and innovation needs to be perfected.
However, we know that the calls for SFI proposals are on the horizon, and we know that it demands a close collaboration with the industry in both public and private sector. We have many examples showing that research groups at the Faculty have had many successful collaborations with the industry. And it is important that we share those experiences. Arild Waaler at Sirius, a SFI centre that collaborates with leading businesses in the oil and gas industry, gave an excellent presentation at the seminar with tips and advice based on the center’s experiences on applying for SFI status and his experience of being center leader of a SFI. He also emphasized that there is no contradiction between bringing quality and relevance to own research while at the same time working with more applied research. The overall message was that it takes time to write a good SFI application. That is why we should start now!
In order for the Faculty to support researchers applying for SFI, we need to know who is planning to do so. We have therefore asked the Heads of Departments to gather an overview of researchers with SFI initiatives at their Departments by 15 June 2018 in order for us to invite those researchers to have a follow-up meeting after the summer holidays.
We hope that the research groups at the Faculty will mobilize and see the possibilities new SFI’s bring. During the fall of 2018 the Faculty will assist researchers with their SFI applications in collaboration with private and public sector in the Norwegian industry. We will do our best to help our researchers trigger and support conversion processes in Norwegian industry and society.