Nordic Innovation have funded seven new projects through our Clusters and Ecosystems As Drivers of Nordic Smart Mobility and Connectivity call for project outlines.
In October 2018, Nordic Innovation invited Nordic clusters, business networks and ecosystems to participate in our
Clusters and Ecosystems As Drivers of Nordic Smart Mobility and Connectivity call for project outlines.
The call was meant to foster the establishment of Nordic innovation projects, new Nordic partnerships, value chains or business models related to quality of life within smart mobility and connectivity.
We received 20 applications from a wide range of clusters, networks and ecosystems working with smart mobility and connectivity, applying for a total of NOK 4 million. After careful consideration, seven project outlines have now been funded.
"We are really happy to see that so many Nordic clusters, networks and ecosystems found this call interesting, and we are sure that the selected projects will produce some great results", says Senior Innovation Adviser Nina Egeli from Nordic Innovation.
The aim is to develop the most promising initiatives to next stage large scale Nordic Innovation projects. "We hope to see several high-quality Nordic projects coming out of this down the road, and welcome everyone who did not recieve funding, or chose not to apply for the call, to apply for the next stage. It was hard to select which projects to fund, but just as with our
previous call for project outlines, it goes to show that there are exciting things going on in the Nordics within smart mobility and connectivity", adds Egeli.
"It goes to show that there are exciting things going on in the Nordics within smart mobility and connectivity."
Nina Egeli, Senior Innovation Adviser, Nordic Innovation
The funded projects
E-mobility System Architecture
This project will develop a system architecture for electric mobility that takes into account the various technology needs and aspects that are already relevant – and that will become of increasing importance as electric mobility grows.
In the first phase, the project will among other things scope the system architecture, select at least three Nordic partner cities, identify potential large corporation partners and prototype simple demonstrators.
Project partners: IUC Syd, Fordonskomponentgruppen, Alliance for Low Carbon Cities, Sust Autonomous Mobility Systems,
IKuben
Contact person:
mats.larsson [at] iucsyd.se (Mats Larsson, IUC Syd)
SubSeaTunnels
Norway and Denmark are soon to be home to the world’s longest subsea road and railroad tunnels, making the region an epicenter of innovation, development and knowledge on subsea tunnels. The work on these tunnels has led to a close cooperation between the Danish InnoBYG and Norwegian Tunnel Safety Cluster clusters, and the Danish SME network Innovation Network Fehmarn Belt.
Now, they wish to expand their network to a Nordic level to be a facilitator for increased cross-border cooperation and innovation – and to make a Nordic test bed for the entire value chain to potentially foster larger R&D projects in the long run.
Project partners: InnoBYG,
Norwegian Tunnel Safety Cluster
Contact person:
mmj [at] dea.nu (Marianne Meyer Jakobsen, InnoBYG)
Nordic Innovation Platform for Sustainable Biofuel and Power Sources (NIP)
The Nordic countries have been actively promoting the transition to the bio economy for several years, however long-distance transportation such as maritime, heavy-duty road transportation and aviation are still heavily dependent on gasoline and diesel. This means that the transition to more sustainable modes of transportation, such as biofuels, is still going slow.
The project partners will establish an innovation platform to address the urgent problem of transitioning long-distance transportation with a focus on bio and sustainable fuels. The project will be an open process in which all relevant stakeholders are invited to participate and contribute to the further scoping of the challenge and the means to solve it.
The result of the innovation platform will be a set of recommendations to how new methods and solutions are to be developed and how potential procurement processes could be designed to initiate the necessary development.
Project partners:
CLEAN, Ocean Cluster,
Merinova,
Maritime Cleantech, Swedish Maritime Tech Forum
Contact person:
bjk [at] cleancluster.dk (Bjarke Kovshøj, CLEAN)
Nordic Cruise Bio-Fueling
Pollution from the cruise industry creates a negative image of the industry and further restrictions from politician towards limiting access of cruise vessels to certain fjords or ports. One solution to greening the cruise industry is to switch to Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) that provides a 20% CO2 reduction, and a SOX and NOX reduction of 80-90%. However, the production of LNG is based on fossil resources and hence contribute to climate change.
An alternative is producing liquid biogas (LBG), which is based on residuals from primary biogas production and serves as a substitution for LNG. The Nordic countries have a tradition for utilising residuals from production and circular economy models are profitable for several businesses. The ample existences of biogas in the Nordics allow the region to create a market for LBG for, among others, the cruise industry.
In this project, the partners will establish a network of relevant actors that is needed to create the foundation for a large-scale project that will put the production of LBG to the cruise industry in motion.
Project partners: Danske Havne, Norske Havner, Sveriges Hamnar, Arctic Circle Business (Grönland)
Contact person:
ku [at] danskehavne.dk (Kasper Ullum, Danske Havne)
Connected Ship
The shipping industry has been slow in implementing new digital technologies, among other because of limited connectivity and harsh physical conditions at sea, as well as the long lifespan of ships and a conservative investment policy among many ship owners. However, there is an increasing demand for new smart and connected solutions in the shipping industry at the present.
Denmark and Norway are global leaders in maritime industry. Sweden on the other hand has a strong maritime cluster of technology suppliers and is a power house within sensors, IT networks and connectivity technologies. At the same time, Finland is a strong cluster for clean tech, ship building and maritime equipment.
However, there is little collaboration between the shipping, cleantech and IT sectors in the Nordic countries. In the first stage of the Connected Ship project, leading Nordic clusters and business networks within shipping, cleantech and ICT will establish a partnership in order to develop a large-scale project, which focuses on supporting new solutions that can increase energy efficiency through smart and connected technologies and thereby help the maritime industry to become more sustainable.
Project partners: MDC,
Mobile Heights, SMTF / RISE
Contact person:
jb [at] mdc.center (Jan Boyesen, MDC)
Nordics United for Aerial Drones in Cold Climates
Aerial drones, or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are already known as the eye in the sky and the next generations carrier of both goods and data. As the novel technology is developing and legislation of its use falling into place, new business models are seeing the light of day. The value chains for traditional monitoring and information gathering are being challenged as costs are heavily cut with the use of UAVs.
The Nordics United for Aerial Drones in Cold Climates project aims to target both the technical and business model related aspects of UAVs from a geographical perspective, creating a Nordic testbed and knowledgebase for UAVs specialised in cold climates.
Project partners: SMTF / RISE, SAMS Norway,
CenSec, Turku Science Park
Contact person:
eva.errestad [at] smtf.se (Eva Errestad, SMTF / Rise)
Nordic Hydrogen Mobility
As the world will depend on successful deep decarbonization efforts to meet the climate goals in the Paris agreement, a unified and predictable common strategy for large-scale deployment of hydrogen technologies for the transport sector is needed. Hydrogen is the only other true zero emission technology solution in addition to battery-based transportation.
Hydrogen can solve needs of all transportation modes, like maritime, trucks and buses, heavy machinery, and conventional passenger vehicles. By collaborating as a unified Nordic entity, we can make an overall market potential with a strong impact. This means opportunities for joint demand efforts and faster implementation of new hydrogen technologies, both initiated from Nordic industrial players, coordination of national plans, but also by strong international collaboration.
In this project, the partners will prepare a long-term action plan to create awareness and visualise how the Nordic region can become a trial market and prepare the Nordic partnership for significant market shares globally in the fast-emerging hydrogen economy.
Project partners: Norwegian Hydrogen Forum, Hydrogen Sweden, New Icelandic Energy, Hydrogen Denmark, VTT
Contact person:
kristian.vik [at] hydrogen.no (Kristian E. Vik, Norwegian Hydrogen Forum)
The article was published on 12/03/2019 on Nordic Innovation website
here. Copyright © 2017 Nordic Innovation
