Baltic TRAM

The Interreg project BalticTRAM successfully connected companies from the Baltic Sea region with universities, research institutes, and large scale research infrastructures across eight countries and helped 15 SMEs solve specific challenges in product development, e.g. for sustainable cement, better medical test kits, more durable electronics and longer lasting batteries.

The opportunity

Companies need access to high level instruments for product development

Many modern European companies build their business on very specific materials – be it electrolytes for batteries, antibodies coated on plastic in medical test kits or cement containing organic ashes. To develop their products, these companies need all the available knowledge about how these materials are composed and how they behave. They need access to high level measuring devices, which often cost more than a million euros a piece. In particular for small enterprises it would not make sense or even be possible to invest into their own high-tech equipment, such as an atomic force microscope, a gamma spectrometer or an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer.

Research institutions can offer access to their under-used instruments

However, many research institutions all across the Baltic Sea region own such instruments. And the good news is: Many of the instruments are not used for research on an everyday basis – companies could make use of them, if they only knew which instruments to use, where to find them and how to contact their operators. In the project Baltic TRAM, research institutes and universities from six countries around the Baltic Sea joined forces with a number of business support organisations and international associations to address this opportunity.

details

Budgets

Baltic TRAM
in numbers

4.16

Million

Total
3.20

Million

Erdf
0.00

Million

Eni + Russia
0.00

Million

Norway

Achievements

A network of industrial research centers of eight countries

These partners set up a network of industrial research centers which supported the cooperation of analytical research institutions with industry in eight countries around the Baltic Sea. Primarily, this network facilitated practical product tests run by small and medium enterprises in their own facilities. In addition and targeting political decision makers and public administrations as well as other analytical research infrastructures, the partners presented analyses of the national governance of innovation and smart specialisation in the Baltic Sea region and the Multi-Level Governance of Innovation and Smart Specialisation in the European context. Eleven universities and research institutes continue the network beyond the project lifetime under the coordination of the Foundation of Innovative Initiatives located in Krakow (Poland). Based on the experience gained in BalticTRAM and the predecessor project Science Link, a follow-up project (CAROTS) aims to establish a new type of private or public-private company in the Baltic Sea region: Commercial Analytical Research Organisations (CARO).

Companies connected with science to develop their products

Over three years, the network brought together companies and scientists through three open calls for applications for measurement services which targeted EU-based SMEs. The calls were launched in Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Sweden and their scope was to provide technical and scientific expertise to help solve challenges linked to the development of new products or services. 68 applications were submitted, covering a wide range of industrial sectors, i.e. life science, material science and engineering. The offered services were proved to be very beneficial especially for micro companies that took advantage of the scientific expertise and measurements offered by the network. The results of these pilot activities have been published as seventeen case studies. The University of Turku in Finland continues to host and operate the best-practice database and portal.

Outputs

Report: Laying grounds for an enhanced macro-regional science-business cooperation

This report contains an overview of the national commonalities and differences in innovation and smart specialisation governance in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, when it comes to the thematic strands of research and innovation in the Baltic Sea Region. The report serves as a manual for political decision makers and public administrations as well as for Analytical Research Infrastructures and further innovation communities, interested in exploring the diversity of initiatives and policy support tools that focus on the cooperation between research infrastructures and the industry.

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Report: Multi-Level Governance of Innovation and Smart Specialisation

This report analyses the global, international, European and transnational governing structures of innovation and smart specialisation in the science-business cooperation context. The report serves as a manual for political decision makers and public administrations as well as for Analytical Research Infrastructures and further innovation communities, interested in exploring the diversity of initiatives and policy support tools that focus on the cooperation between research infrastructures and the industry.

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Report: BalticTRAM Smart Specialisation Trends

This report summarises the added value brought by the implementation of the three Baltic TRAM open calls for services offered to businesses to already existing key EU initiatives as the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy, the EU Maritime Security Strategy´s (EUMSS) Action Plan and the New Skills Agenda for Europe. The report serves as a manual for political decision makers and public administrations as well as for Analytical Research Infrastructures and further innovation communities, interested in exploring the diversity of initiatives and policy support tools that focus on the cooperation between research infrastructures and the industry.

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BalticTRAM Company Cases

The Baltic TRAM project offered to companies free access to state-of-the-art analytical research facilities across the Baltic Sea region to perform measurements on material samples. The technical and scientific expertise provided helped the companies solve challenges linked to the development of new products or services. Some of the results of this process are described as 17 business cases that cover a wide range of industrial sectors (e.g. healthcare, thermal insulation, cement manufacturing) and present the challenge, the experiment and techniques that were followed, as well as the outcome of the testing. These reports could serve as best cases and examples for companies that face common challenges and would be interested in requesting the services that will continue being offered by the Industrial Research Centres (IReC) network.

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BalticTRAM open data portal

The open data portal is a data base consisting of experiments that were performed in the context of material research measurements related to various industries during the Interreg project BalticTRAM. Currently, this on-line tool hosts 32 case studies out of 51 experiments implemented. The case studies describe the problem, the research activity, the used methods and instruments and the achieved results. In order to have access to the case studies, the users need to register filling in their name, e-mail, and reason for requesting access. The users also have the possibility to request access to the measurement data of each case study and to the final report. The search in the portal can be performed based on filters that can be applied to get the most relevant results. This portal can increase knowledge of SMEs regarding the possibilities for research activities offered by analytical research infrastructures.

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