Consortium

Institution description

EPFL – Laboratory of Photonics and Interface, headed by Professor Michael Grätzel, is the Coordinator of SUN2CHEM.
EPFL is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. With the status of a national school since 1969, the young engineering school has grown in many dimensions, to the extent of becoming one of the most famous European institutions of science and technology. With both a Swiss and international vocation, EPFL focuses on three missions: education, research and innovation. EPFL collaborates with an important network of partners, including other universities and colleges, secondary schools and gymnasiums, industry and the economy, politicians and the general public, in order to have a real impact on society.

Institution description

The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) is a public organization under the responsibility of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. CNRS is a multidisciplinary institution founded in 1939 and devoted to 1) evaluate and carry out all research capable of advancing knowledge and bringing social, cultural & economic benefits; 2) encourage promotion and application of research results; 3) foster scientific information. It employs more than 32’000 scientists and engineers, and is involved in 1100 different labs in France and around the world

Since 2017, CNRS has gained the “Human Resources Excellence in Research” label (HRS4R), which ensures that transparency and fair treatment (equality) for all candidates to new job opportunities in research.

The Institute of Chemistry and Processes for Energy, Environment and Health (ICPEES), is a joint research unit (JRU) with a partnership between the CNRS and the University of Strasbourg (UNISTRA). The Institute benefits from high research standards and facilities in the fields of chemistry, physics and material sciences. The Institute is composed by more than a hundred of scientists concerned by the development of advanced research related to energy, environment and health. The institute is structured with 8 teams, amongst them the team “Photocatalysis, Photoconversion and Green Chemical Processes working on the elaboration of nanocomposites for Energy and Environment applications.

Institution description

IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN) is a public-sector research, innovation and training center active in the fields of energy, transport and the environment. Its mission is to provide public players and industry with efficient, economical, clean and sustainable technologies to take up the three major challenges facing society in the 21^st century: climate change and environmental impacts, energy diversification and water resource management. To combat climate change and propose alternatives to oil and gas, IFPEN develops new processes for the production of biofuels and chemical intermediates. It also designs innovative technologies for offshore wind energy and to harness ocean energies. From research to industry, technological innovation is central to IFPEN which plays a major role in the fields of catalysis, including photocatalysis. IFPEN work in this field has been patterned and recently published in Advanced Functional Materials.

IFPEN is an active player in numerous projects, technological platforms and networks within the context of the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme and is contributing to the emergence of a European vision of research in the fields of mobility and energy. IFPEN works with over 100 academic and industrial partners, international companies and SMEs around the globe, through collaborative projects, consortia, or bilateral contracts.

Institution description

The INSTM was established in 1992 as a Consortium of Italian Universities with the goal to promote research activities in the field of Chemistry of Materials. Later it was joined by other similar Institutions and expanded its interests to the Science and Technology of Materials. The acronym INSTM stands for Consortium of Italian Universities for the Science and Technology of Materials. Nowadays it groups 49 Italian Universities, in practice all the Universities where research on Materials is carried out.

INSTM is an original bottom-up aggregation of researchers, which has a minimum of bureaucratic structure, and efficiently coordinates the activities, promotes the joint participation of INSTM groups to Italian and European projects, is active in technology transfer, also establishing spin-off enterprises, takes care of the training aspects in Materials Science and Technology. The INSTM Consortium promotes the research activities of its members (the 49 Universities) in the area of Materials Science and Technology through organizational, technical and financial support.

The participation of individual Universities to INSTM is on a voluntary basis. Once a given University decides to join INSTM, all the researchers who may be interested to participate to the activities of the Consortium can do that after their application is accepted by the Executive Board. About 2000 professors, researchers, post-docs and PhD students are associated to INSTM and the number thereof is continuously increasing.

Institution description

Uppsala University is the oldest university in the Nordic countries, founded in 1477. Today it is a comprehensive university with 40 000 students and 6 000 employees. The university conducts education and research within 9 faculties and is consistently ranked among the top 100 universities in the world. The Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University is a leading research centre for materials and physical sciences and engineering. It has a strong profile in renewable energy with world-leading research in solar cells, solar fuels, batteries, wave power, and energy materials. UU is part of the Swedish node of the KIC “InnoEnergy”. The Department of Chemistry – Ångström Laboratory has 6 research programs, ca 170 employees, including 100 PhD students in well-structured training programs. Department research and education cover the main disciplines of chemistry, including both fundamental and more applied aspects. A particular strength is chemistry for renewable energy and materials.

The Department hosts since 2006 the Swedish Consortium for Artificial Photosynthesis (CAP) – a cross-disciplinary collaboration between several PIs and in total ca. 70 researchers at UU, from molecular biology to chemical physics. Additional strong groups of CAP are located at KTH (Stockholm) and Umeå University. CAP was initiated in the 1990ies and is recognized internationally as the first large collaboration project on solar fuels. This provides a dynamic, highly interactive and very visible international environment

Institution description

Leiden University is the oldest university in the Netherlands offering education to about 15,000 students in a wide range of studies. The university explicitly promotes collaborations across boundaries of departmental disciplines, faculties and the university itself. The project proposed here involves the Leiden Institute of Chemistry. The chemistry and life sciences research in the Leiden Institute of Chemistry is organized around two major themes: Energy and Sustainability, and Chemical Biology. The expertise of this group is in elucidating coherent mechanistic schemes that relate conformational dynamics to the reaction chemistry of natural and artificial photosynthetic complexes and catalysts with electrochemistry, spectroscopy, in particular Magic Angle Spinning (MAS) NMR, electron microscopy and mixed quantum-classical dynamics simulations. They perform structural analyses, often with sub-Ångström resolution, for targeting structure and dynamics and perform numerical and theoretical interpretations to identify and understand commonalities in coherent energy conversion driven by dedicated conformational twisting modes in excited states far from equilibrium. They routinely combine NMR with transmission electron microscopy diffraction with access to the NECEN national transmission electron microscopy imaging facility, located in Leiden. They develop mesoscale methods for the realistic simulation of modulated (self-)assembly and supramolecular structure formation. They have translated the principles of the natural photosynthesis machinery into the in silico design of artificial photosynthesis molecular complexes and catalysts with coherent conversion of reactant into product states driven by twisting.

Institution description

The research Institute of Advanced Materials at the University Jaume I (UJI-INAM) created by ‘Generalitat Valenciana’ on May, 4th 2015, is a center of interdisciplinary science and technology in the fields of physics, chemistry, and related areas, applied to advanced materials, with vocation towards the progress of the socioeconomic environment and scientific excellence with international influence and impact. UJI-INAM activities are focused in three main areas: energy, optoelectronics, and catalysis. This center works on physical chemical understanding of advanced materials properties and operation, from molecules and interfaces to bulk compounds, connecting matter and light, to create new knowledge that bridges the gap between materials and devices. UJI-INAM focus on paving the role for new functional materials that generate applications in clean energy supply and storage, lighting, and the creation of chemicals of high added value. Therefore, UJI-INAM promote substantial advances in the frontiers of knowledge and likewise support new production lines.

Impact of the research of UJI-INAM members may be summarized by the fact that, being UJI the first Spanish University in Chemistry classifications by normalized impact and excellence in Spain (CYD 2017 report), in the 2013-2017 period INAM accumulates more than 300 papers in journals indexed in the Clarivate Web of Science, receiving more than 4500 citations, what represents 31% of total citations from UJI. In the 2016-2018 period, 100 papers were published, with 30% of them published in journals with impact factor larger than 9 and 10% of them were qualified as Highly Cited Papers. This high impact is associated to both activity at UJI and very active collaborations with top international researchers and laboratories around the world that have produced excellent works in quality and impact. Consequently, INAM-UJI is an international reference center in different fields of expertise, what has attracted a total of 60 PhD students and Postdoc researchers that have realized internships for a total of 265 months along the period 2013-2018.

Institution description

Aarhus University (AU) was founded in 1928. It has four faculties – Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of Health Sciences and School of Business & Social Sciences. The four faculties cover the entire research spectrum – basic research, applied research, strategic research and research based advice to the authorities. AU has 39,000 students;  about 1,800 PhD students – of which one in four has a foreign nationality – and close to 900 postdoctoral scholars together with 11,500 employees. As such, internationalisation is a key part of AU’s mission and it continuously works to strengthen the international profile of the University through a series of initiatives, which will increase international research partnerships and the number of international students. AU has been establishing itself as a university for cutting-edge research, and has been moving up the most important university ranking lists. In 2018, the university is ranked at number 111 at the Leiden Ranking, number 141 at the QS World University Ranking, and number 123 of 17,000 universities on the Times Higher Education World University Ranking. AU has participated in 295 FP7 and 255 H2020 projects – 21 and 26, respectively, as coordinator – and has hosted/is currently hosting 51 ERC projects. AU has a very successful track record of managing both individual fellowships and large international projects and of hosting visiting researchers of all career stages for both training and knowledge transfer purposes. 

The Business Development and Technology (BTECH) department’s focus is on research and educational excellence, and BTECH offers four undergraduate and two graduate study programmes as well as a number of part-time studies all within business engineering, business economics and management. Furthermore, Aarhus School of Engineering offers the Electronic Engineer degree programme and the pre-admission course for engineering programmes at Aarhus University in Herning.

The study programmes offered by BTECH, Aarhus University are based on interaction across professional boundaries as well as close interaction with students and the surrounding business community. All study programmes have an innovative and international perspective.

BTECH has approximately 1,750 students (about 1,250 are full-time students and 500 part-time students). Approximately 15% of the full-time students come from other countries than Denmark. The department has around 80 full-time employees (70 full-time faculty members) and employs 25 part-time teachers.

Centre for Energy Technologies (CET) is an independent research centre at Aarhus University that focuses on the development of new and innovative energy systems for businesses and consumers, primarily in the areas of electricity, renewable energy, energy efficiency and hydrogen. It aspires to be one of the leading national and regional producers of independent, high-quality academic research related to energy studies and energy policy.

Institution description

Imperial College London is a science, engineering and medicine-based university with 13,000 students and 6,000 staff, and is consistently ranked in the global top 20 universities. Energy is one of the College’s key strategic themes for growth, with photovoltaics an important component in the energy research portfolio. The College has made significant recent investments to create one of the largest global research efforts in the field of organic and molecular electronics, with some 25 academics and about 150 pre- and post-doctoral researchers across the departments of Physics, Chemistry and Materials, co-ordinated through its Centre for Plastic Electronics.

Institution description

The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) is a non-profit research organisation whose creation, in 2004, was promoted by the Catalan Government with support from the European Union, the Spanish government and industrial partners (Repsol, BASF, Laboratoris Esteve, Covestro).

ICIQ’s mission is to perform excellent research at the frontier of knowledge in two main areas of chemical research: catalysis and renewable energy. To do so, we prioritise the training of the future generation of scientists by offering high-quality educational programmes to master, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. We also work to strengthen the competitiveness of the chemical industry in Southern Europe through innovation and technical improvement.

ICIQ hosts around 300 people; 80% of them are researchers (42% international origin) integrated in 18 research groups led by senior and tenure track group leaders working on various areas of supramolecular chemistry, catalysis, molecular photovoltaics and computational modelling. Globally, research groups at the Institute have published more than 1800 publications since 2004 (institutional h-index 127, 45 average citations per paper, 1st position in “Best Journal Rate” (ratio of papers published in the most influential journals) according to Mapping Scientific Excellence).

Institution description

SOLINTEL is a high-technological SME with more than two decades of experience in construction and energy sectors developing business in three main areas of the interconnected building-energy value chain. Solintel combines engineering and consultancy services with their own building and energy projects acting as investor and/or developer. The company focusses in three main areas:

• Consultancy and Engineering services. We work providing services as designing, engineering and construction project management providing services of inspection and quality control with a focused expertise in energy efficiency and consultancy in projects of rehabilitation providing assistant to Real Estate investors, private communities of residential properties and financial entities.
• Building Retrofitting developer and investor: Solintel is also promoting their own residential retrofitting projects. Nowadays Solintel is developing real estate and Green building projects in Valencia, Colombia and Brazil and we have a 32 dwelling project under LEED certification process
• Innovation and new technologies consultancy services targeting all stakeholders involved in the construction and energy markets, with a focus on simulation, monitoring and control of energy systems, integration of RES in buildings, new materials and new technologies oriented to improve productivity at construction sector.

Solintel guarantees the right alignment between technologies and business strategies promoting the creation of value in traditional markets. The strategy followed by the company to invest over the 50% of its profits in R&D guarantees the success in our solutions. Our strengths are based on:

• The application of processes analysis tools developed during more than 30 years of experience in business management.
• The creativity of the given solutions, based on original production processes and new business models.
• Knowledge of the markets and the most international advanced technologies with proven business results.
• An international networking of alliances and a business commercial network covering Europe and Latin-America with permanent offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Medellín (Colombia), Hermosillo (Mexico), Natal (Brazil)

SOLINTEL is formed by a multidisciplinary team of engineers (industrial, civil, and chemical engineers) that provide the latest energy-efficiency solutions for new or refurbished building stock, full development of novel energy systems, improvement of industrial processes, and high performance materials development.

Due to the expertise hold by the company in the National and European research initiatives, having more than 30 projects, in programs such as FP5, FP6, FP7, HORIZON 2020, Eurostar, EUREKA, CHINEKA, or JAPONEKA, SOLINTEL offers consultancy services to technological companies that want to improve their products or participate in collaborative high technology programs along with the top research centres and universities.

SOLINTEL has also joined the European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP), the Energy-Efficient Buildings E2B EI association and belongs to the Ad-Hoc Advisory Industrial Group for the European Commission (EeB PPP).

Institution description

Established in 1997, Euroquality is a service provider specialised in innovation consulting and project management. Its main activities are innovation consulting, economic studies, policy evaluation, technological and technical studies, development of communication material, training, and the management of national and European projects. For 23 years, Euroquality has been able to adapt the different technological mutations and always be at the top of the state of the art, advising international clients on the development of their innovations. Euroquality has also been involved as a partner in a large number of projects on FP6, FP7, H2020, LIFE +, LIFE, Leonardo and Erasmus+ programmes, bringing its knowledge on several technical topics and its strong expertise on the management of EU projects and rules. This expertise is considered essential by most coordinator of projects EQY has worked with, as it helps ensuring the right implementation of the project in due time and by respecting the rules, using already approved methodologies and tools.

Institution description

Nankai University (NKU) is a public research university located in Tianjin, China. It is a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Double First Class University. It was founded in 1919, by educators Yan Xiu and Zhang Boling.

During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Nankai University, Peking University and Tsinghua University merged and formed the National Changsha Provisional University, which later moved to Kunming and was renamed the National Southwestern Associated University. It was described as The North Star of Higher Learning. On December 25, 2000, the State Ministry of Education signed an agreement with Tianjin Municipal Government to jointly establish and develop Nankai University. Since then, Nankai has been listed among the universities to receive priority development investments from the Chinese government in the twenty-first century.

Nankai has long been recognized as one of the most prestigious universities in China, constantly ranked among various top 10 lists of Chinese Universities. As a comprehensive university with a wide range of disciplines, Nankai features a balance between the humanities and the sciences, a solid foundation and a combination of application and creativity. The university has 26 academic colleges, together with the Graduate School, the School for Continuing Education, the Advanced Vocational School, the Modern Distance Education School, and categories covering literature, history, philosophy, economics, management, law, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, teaching and art. The university is especially well known for its economics, history, chemistry and mathematician researches and studies.

Institution description

The National University of Singapore is an autonomous university in Singapore. Founded in 1905, it is the oldest institute of higher learning (IHL) in Singapore, as well as the largest university in the country in terms of student enrolment and curriculum offered. NUS is a research-intensive, comprehensive university with an entrepreneurial dimension. NUS is ranked as Asia’s top university in both the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2016. According to the latest 2016 QS World University Rankings, NUS is placed 12th in the world and 1st in Asia. NUS also fared well in the 2016–17 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, coming in 24th in the world and 1st in Asia. Based on QS University Rankings by subject, NUS Chemistry retained its position as 1st in Asia and 7th internationally for 3 years in a row.

Institution description

The University of Tokyo (UTO) was established in 1877 as the first national university in Japan. As a leading research university, UTokyo offers courses in essentially all academic disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels and conducts research across the full spectrum of academic activity. The University aims to provide its students with a rich and varied academic environment that ensures opportunities for both intellectual development and the acquisition of professional knowledge and skills.

The Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), the newest institute attached to the University of Tokyo, aims to contribute to the development of science and technology by expeditiously taking on new challenges arising from the advancement of science and coincident changes in society, and by exploring new areas of advanced science and technology for the benefit of humankind and society since its establishment in 1987. More than 40 eponymous labs for a wide variety of specialized fields are pursuing advanced research in science and technology as well as in social sciences and the field of barrier-free research. We extend these research areas over a wide range, from basic and applied fields further to the social system.

The Energy System Sugiyama Laboratory develops high efficiency PV cells and electrochemical reactors to produce solar fuel.