Flemish Nocturne ITEA ARTEMIS

Research must be international and produce results

A number of presentations brought across the fact that much research is carried out in Flanders. Rudy Lauwereins of IMEC explored the ‘embedded systems’ and discussed their potential to solve the big challenges facing our society.

“Forty years ago we would have needed a computer room to store 200 bytes. Today we can easily carry 32Mb around in our pockets. A lot has changed, but the interfaces are still the same: screen, keyboard…” 

Rudy Lauwereins is a strong believer in new types of interface such as chemical and thermal sensors or optical detectors but we should first tackle the problems concerning the electricity usage of such equipment.

Flemish investments

Director Industrial R&D Leo Van de Loock of IWT illustrated in figures how Flanders has always been above average with regard to investing in technological research. Some years, more than half of the IWT grant for scientific research is given to ICT-applications. IWT invested nearly 50 million Euros in ITEA for just as many projects. Artemis, in which IWT has been participating since 2008, has already received 3.6 million Euros. Investment in ITEA and Artemis remains stable despite the economic circumstances, although Leo Van de Loock has his doubts concerning the fragmentation of the budgets.

“Perhaps it’s time for optimization?”

Companies such as Spikes and Alcatel-Lucent couldn’t be further apart in size; however both take part in research projects within ITEA and ARTEMIS. Spikes is a Belgian company with 50 employees, Alcatel-Lucent is a multinational company with nearly 80, 000 employees and has a solid reputation for engaging in research and development.

The participation of Alcatel-Lucent in the ITEA-project has, among other things, led to solutions regarding use of the mobile phone as a payment method. “The European Commission wants every EU citizen to possess a mobile digital wallet by 2015,” declares Toon Coppens.

“Through the extension of mobile payment systems Alcatel-Lucent is transforming mobile phones to a kind of Swiss knife.”

According to Peter Stuer of Spikes, small companies can also benefit from participating in research programs. He is convinced that ITEA will soon make a profit despite the fact  Spikes is conducting fundamental research rather than research on the further development of existing products.

Kris Verstappen of Human Interface Group agrees with Peter Stuer, but he pointed out that it is not simple for a small company to participate in research. The research world functions in a completely different way from a commercial company. Assistance from organizations like IWT is therefore more than welcome to cope with the red tape.

Internationalization

Wim De Waele of IBBT focused on the wider context: If Europe wants to remain an active global player, then our research cannot be interpreted as ‘business as usual’. He pleads for a thorough internationalization and wants to see research converted into commercial successes.

“Europe is on top of research, but other countries are doing better economically with the delivered results of their efforts.”

The Investment in innovation made by the United States each year is almost six times more than that made by Europe. Wim De Waele called upon researchers to focus primarily on ‘disruptive innovation’, as opposed to ‘incremental progress’.

As a finale to the Flemish Nocturne Three Alcatel-Lucent Bell MSc Thesis Awards were presented to Killian De Smedt, Lode Hoste and Wouter Theetaert. Additionally, Nele Noels received the 'Scientific Award FWO-FNRS ‘.