VTT and CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, a University of California research centre) have signed a strategic partnership agreement on 1 August, 2022. The agreement offers VTT an excellent opportunity for a strategic collaboration with one of the most prestigious top universities in the U.S., UC Berkeley.
The objective of the partnership is to drive strategic knowledge transfer and build a strong network between VTT and CITRIS. The partnership includes e.g. research exchanges, network meetings and access to UC Berkeley's comprehensive ecosystem.
"VTT already has customers in the U.S. who are considering whether Finland would be the right place to make research and development investments. This is an excellent opportunity for us to get access to Silicon Valley to learn new ways of doing things – how to turn hard research into commercial success stories," says Erja Turunen, Executive Vice President of Digital technologies at VTT.
The UC Berkeley campus in California is focused on energy, robotics and health technology, so there are several links to VTT's research. The theme of the strategic collaboration is confirmed annually by VTT's management team, and we’re starting off the collaboration with the theme ‘Smart Energy’.
Research professor Kari Mäki will visit Berkeley in the fall term 2022. His topic will be the flexibility of smart energy systems and new business models, including e.g. the possibilities of digital modeling of buildings.
"UC Berkeley carries out extremely versatile and high-quality research activities at the core of the digitalization of energy systems and sector integration. My first impression is that they work very innovatively here and genuinely seek new solutions. Students are actively present on campus, and the atmosphere is inspiring. The goal is to be able to start the research cooperation in the form of concrete projects," says Mäki.
More information about the CITRIS institute here.
