75th Anniversary for the University of Bergen

We congratulate the University of Bergen with their 75th anniversary and reflect on our eight years of partnership.

Our history and collaboration with the University of Bergen stretches back to 2013 when the university first became a partner of GCE Ocean Technology.

The goal was initially to establish a closer link and collaboration between the business community and the University of Bergen which was one of the points emphasized by then new rector, Dag Rune Olsen.

The Professor and dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Helge K. Dahle, signed the agreement on board the research ship G.O. Sars on behalf of UiB.

– There is a great potential for the transfer of knowledge both ways. We benefit from understanding what is happening in the industry, and parts of our research could have been disseminated better to the business community, Dahle stated back in 2013.

An Essential part of the Cluster Ecosystem

The University of Bergen has ever since the beginning of their partnership contributed greatly to our now mature cluster ecosystem of entrepreneurs, corporates, risk capital providers, R&D environments, public agencies and academia and we have achieved many things together, and so we mention a few:

Innovation Ecosystems:

• SFI Smart Ocean was awarded SFI-status by the Research Council of Norway in 2020. The centre is planned for eight years with a total budget of close to 300 million NOK. The vision is realisation of a generic autonomous and flexible wireless multi-parameter marine observation system for reliable management of a productive and healthy ocean.
• Norwegian Ocean Laboratory: The lab aims at developing new marine technologies, performing marine research through a combined effort.
• Ocean Innovation Norwegian Catapult Center: helps with bringing the good ideas to market by offering test-environments of equipment, expertise and network to the ocean industries.

Rolf Birger Pedersen, Head of Centre for Deep Sea Research at the University of Bergen guiding EU advisors from Innovation Norway and all clusters in Norway around the Norwegian Ocean Laboratory this week.

EU projects:

• Ocean of Opportunities is an EU network which will mobilize for more EU applications from organizations in the ocean industries. This will be done through highlighting opportunities in Horizon Europe and by connecting various actors from business, the public sector and research institutions nationally and internationally
• Norwegian Ocean Alliance to Horizon Europe

The EU network Ocean of Opportunities was kicked off 7 October in Bergen.

Other programmes and projects:

• SEAS programme is aimed at creating European research leaders in marine sustainability for the future.
• Eco Safe Ridge Mining is a competence building project that will investigate if deep-sea mining on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge can take place sustainably, avoiding significant harm to the environment.
• Smart Spesialisation to Accelerate Transition is a project investigating how universities and colleges can play a stronger role in reconfiguring the regional innovation system towards sustainable smart specialisation in Western Norway.
• Assignment collaboration between students and industry is an on-going issue and we collaborate on establishing study programmes tailored for the ocean industries and placing students for assignments with the cluster companies.
• Numerous seminars and events. Our next event with the University of Bergen is the Offshore wind conference – Science meets industry 10 November, and we are looking forward to welcoming you all together with UiB, to the grand University Aula.

These are just a few examples from our many current endeavours together with UiB, but we will stop here and end with extending our warmest congratulations and good wishes to the University of Bergen with their 75th anniversary.

We are looking forward to future collaboration and innovation.