Second Project Periodic report

Publishable summary

Ukraine is one of the Europe’s neighbours, and the reinforcement of the cooperation with Ukraine in the context of the European Research Area (ERA) is an important part of the European Union’ international collaboration activities.

The 36-month SUCCESS project gave to Ukraine the possibility to improve the research activities of their highest quality in the FP7 thematic priority “Nanosciences, nanotechnologies, materials & new production technologies” (NMP), and in particular in the field of Material Sciences, through twinning activities between one of the leading Ukrainian scientific and educational organisations, the Institute for Scintillation Materials of Academy of Science of Ukraine (ISMA), with their long term partner University Claude Bernard of Lyon (UCBL). The S&T specialist (inno), an international S&T collaboration expert and experienced coach and FP7 trainer for the scientific organisations, has provided methodological, coaching and training support to the project, and the Kharkov Technologies has supported the awareness raising and international cooperation campaign of ISMA.

During the second project period, the consortium focused its activities on strengthening ISMA international cooperation capacities, on enhancing the dissemination of scientific information & results of research, and on attracting new partners for further collaboration. Particularly, SUCCESS supported ISMA staff participation in a number of international conferences, workshops and other sessions that increased opportunities for partnership building and enlargement of cooperation between ISMA and European institutions in the field of ISMA interests.

On the other hand, the close collaboration between ISMA and UCBL built on a twinning agreement (signed at the project beginning on July, 20 2011) positively impacted on a progress of joint research, scientists exchange, organization of joint scientific workshops. ISMA and UBCL mutually participated in international events where they presented the results of their joint research. The interest of international community to these results was important; that enabled the consortium to prepare the background for extending of twinning collaboration.

During Period 2 SUCCESS project has kept on promoting ISMA research capacities, on building competences and strengthen ISMA skills to increase participation in European research programs. SUCCESS assisted to the training of ISMA and Ukrainian staff on FP7 (and upcoming Horizon 2020) mechanisms. At SCINT 2013 international conference ISMA and UCBL team organized a training session dedicated to young specialists to become proficient in different scientific branches including scintillation physics, luminescent spectroscopy, material science and crystal growth.

SUCCESS also clearly demonstrated the key long-term goal of the European-Ukrainian cooperation that has been formulated in the SUCCESS exit strategy: to improve European research in the field of radiation detection technology by overcoming existing fragmentation, creation of a new physical model and approaches, developing tools and models able to match those of the US and Asia.

All SUCCESS activities of the second period have converged on the objective to show AN URGENT NEED at European level to develop a common vision of development and exploration the longer-term (Years 2020+) research, innovation, and deployment in the field of scintillation and luminescent materials. These structuring activities should begin NOW and via progress achieved through the SUCCESS CSA and other initiatives pushing forward the idea of creating a pan-EU community for EU competitiveness.

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