Accessing Funding
A key service area for SEGEC will be to improve awareness of, and assist, Scottish academic and commercial organisations to participate in green energy research and development activity, and to exploit the full potential of the funding programmes, which are available at domestic and European/supra-national levels.
SEGEC's services will include:
- environmental scanning, in cooperation with other agencies such as the EC and Scotland Europa, to ensure that it is fully abreast of research and development funding opportunities domestically and overseas;
- dissemination of information on funding schemes to appropriate organisations, though a variety of media including Newsletters, events (normally in partnership with other organisations) and direct contacts;
- proactively seeking to construct research partnerships, both domestic and transnational, to pursue identified opportunities;
- assisting with the preparation of funding applications; and
- assisting with the management and administration of research projects if required.
Discussions with partners have identified specific thematic areas for early activity. Examples include:
- working with Norwegian partners under an existing project which is seeking to link CCS demonstrators across the North Sea;
- pursuing in partnership with other North Sea partners under the current Framework Programme 7 (FP7) call on carbon storage and EU CO2 transport network areas;
- engaging through EU industrial resources associations and research networks to establish partnerships for future research and deployment of renewable heat and investigating potential links to decarbonised electrical heating as a possible means of exploiting renewable electricity; and
- working alongside the Scottish Government on the ISLES Project and North Sea grid feasibility study with a view to creating a demonstration project on supergrids that can be supported in future calls under FP7.
