Partnership organization

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for the continuation of SEEIT was the linking of the partnership to ongoing policy making at EU level in relation to implementation of SET plan goals and the translation of energy transition objectives in the EU into strategies in research and innovation.

Being well-connected to the EU Commission’s General Directorate for Energy, the SEEIT coordinator Jørgen Kjems, together with other Steering Group members, managed to put SEEIT on the map of important strategic partnerships with a bearing on the implementation of the SET plan. One of the key arguments was that the 10 university partners represented a very large pool of students and thus future engineers and entrepreneurs upon which the implementation of SET plan targets would be highly dependent. This positioning resonated with the SET plan reasoning which at this point in time began to actively focus on the human resource aspects (rather than merely technology road maps per se) of transforming energy systems. SEEIT could position itself as an ideal partner for this to be addressed. Later on, the EU Commission began a process of mapping existing and future needs for energy-related education in light of the SET plan objectives, and SEEIT was among the actors involved in populating the panels set up to do the analysis and provide recommendations. The link between SEEIT and ongoing EU policy making illustrate also a strategic dimension of why the SEEIT partners would continue the collaboration process. Securing the recognition of SEEIT in the EU Commission as an actor in the overall SET plan process was important for securing “upwards” as well as “downwards” legitimacy.

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EIT. Not surprisingly, those who had been most involved in the KIC process were those who could see a reason for continuing after the rejection. Among the research centres VTT (Finland) and ECN (Netherlands) did not continue their membership, but remained linked due to the close ties with their respective national technical university partners.

Formally, the partners of SEEIT are institutions, but for each partner it varies what this implies in terms of actual participation. At some partners, SEEIT is anchored in the central administration pulling in researchers from different research departments depending on the activity SEEIT puts focus on – this is the case for e.g. DTU, Sintef, NTNU, Delft and Aalto. In other cases, the partnership is tied to a specific research department. This is the case for TU Munich where the department of energy systems analysis is de facto partner. In some cases, the anchoring is weak in the sense that no clear tie to an organizational level (central administration, department level) is established at the partner. This is the case for e.g. CBS and ENEA. The anchoring is therefore “opportunistic” or pragmatic more than consistent. This is not surprising given the institutional variations across partners.

Each partner has a seat in the SEEIT Steering Group (SG). Again, the actual implication of this varies from partner to partner. In some cases, the SG member is an appointed representative for a dean or research director in the central administration – in other cases the dean or research director him/herself is actively participating in SG meetings. During 2010-2012, the SG meets approximately twice a year typically in connection with a partnership workshop pulling in participants from the partners depending on the topic of the workshop and the mobilizing effectiveness of the respective SEEIT anchors. The SG meetings typically consist of agenda points related to ongoing EU policy developments in relation to the SET plan and tendencies in the

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ongoing reform of EU’s framework programme for research and innovation. The SG members would then discuss the prospects for SEEIT in light of these tendencies and receive information from the working group and individual partners on ongoing projects and workshop activities. Several of the SG members have senior management positions at their home institution and are involved in other European strategic alliances besides SEEIT. This means that the discussions in relation to policy tendencies are based only partially on published policy documents. Informal access to policy makers plays an important part in the ongoing interpretations of the policy tendencies and the positioning of SEEIT herein. The connectedness of SEEIT in the wider European landscape of energy and innovation policy strategies is therefore a key element in the SG meetings.

In order to give operational support, SEEIT has a permanent Working Group (WG) consisting of research advisors, research assistants and administrative supporters. The WG thus plays a vital role for making workshops effective, mobilizing participants, and for supporting project initiatives with e.g. fundraising expertise. The SG and the WG constitute the continuity of SEEIT in terms of participants and frequency of meetings.

SEEIT workshops are typically driven by the hosting institution in collaboration with the coordination team at DTU. The format is simple in the sense that the workshop is a compilation of presentations given by the participants typically focused on their respective research and collaboration interests. Because of the technology oriented focus areas and the dominance of technology research partners, the majority of presentations is about technical research and research problems that calls for technical research in order to be solved. The majority of participants are energy technology engineers and researchers with a natural science background. At the workshops there is

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typically also members from the WG to support with input regarding funding opportunities as back up of project spin outs.

[Example of workshop agenda , TU Munich, October 2011]