A Nimbus Centre delegation returned from a very successful outreach mission to Spain recently. The delegation comprised the TEC Gateway Manager, Nimbus Centre Water Co-ordinator and technical Engineering staff.

Barcelona City council hosted a meeting where the Nimbus delegation represented the combined interests of CIT and IERC, and were supported by Cork City council and Tyndall. The meetings have set the foundation for collaborations with Barcelona City on EU Horizon 2020 projects.

The Nimbus delegation were delighted to renew the relationship with Barcelona at the IERC annual conference in Cork yesterday (1/5/14), which the Spanish delegation attended following an invitation from the Nimbus Centre.

Developing international industry links

The Nimbus delegation visited RICOH and had engaging discussions with them. Nimbus support their submission for the development of the sensor and hardware platform for a smart pipework, and look forward to further developing this relationship.

Other successful business meetings on the trip involved Gas Natural Fenosa (a large Spanish utility company), Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (UPC: Technical University of Catalonia, CSIC: Spanish National Research Council) and Ateknea (another technological centre), in order to start collaboration on several projects.

Further meetings in Seville

As a result of a meeting with the Department of System and Automatic Engineering (USE: University of Seville), Nimbus are now preparing partnerships in two H2020 proposals related to control of energy systems. Loyola University also invited Nimbus to investigate collaboration during the trip.

About Nimbus

The healthy set of new academic and business relationships, developed across Spain during this trip, add to Nimbus’ existing international partnership portfolio and align with the Centre’s expansion roadmap through 2016.

The Nimbus Centre created 22 new positions in 2013 and are on track to add a further 27 staff during 2014 to cope with demands from project work with individuals, SME’s and large industry and academic institutions.