Iva Stoykova (23) has been interning with NTRANS this semester. But interning has not been the same since COVID-19. She couldn’t come here as she normally would, so she has been doing her internship virtually.

(Published 18.06.2021)

“Of course, I would have loved to come to Norway to do my internship in a non-virtual manner! I prefer to meet people face to face, and also to experience different cultures and all the other benefits you get as a regular exchange student”.
 

“It’s not the worst-case scenario”!

She is talking about her experiences from her girl’s room in her hometown Petrich in the southwest of Bulgaria through the Teams-screen. And like most students, she is getting used to communicating through several different digital platforms. It’s the new normal. She is doing her bachelor’s degree in Avans University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, but has studied mostly from home since March 2020.
“It’s not the worst-case scenario! We are safe, and are actually lucky to be able to do our work”. Iva is smiling and taking a positive outlook on the situation.

The role of innovation in the energy transition

Iva Stoykova has been interested in nature and protecting the environment from a very young age. She knew that she had to study abroad:
“We are behind on these matters in Bulgaria, so I needed to go to Western Europe to follow my heart. There’s so much at stake”!

The topic of her bachelor thesis is The role of innovation in the energy transition, and she has interviewed six key people in six of the Norwegian technological FMEs. (See fact box to the right: Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research.)

Key findings

Four of the FME centres want to close the gap between partners and academia. Those four centres believe in sector coupling, which means making different sectors work together.
Three of the FME centres believe that the government has to be more active to support innovation, and that they must see the potential of the work that is being done in the research centres.

Iva has learned a lot through her work. For example, she didn’t know that Norway had such a lot of hydro power and electric cars. “Norway is doing a good job, and is working together with the EU on major projects. I think that’s really important. It’s not everyone for himself! We are sharing both the knowledge and the need for innovation”.
 

Learning on both sides

“A few of the centres have reported that they have learned some things through my interviews, too. They are quite eager to receive my thesis when it’s ready”.
Vice Director of NTRANS, and Professor at NTNU, Tomas Moe Skjølsvold has been her supervisor during her internship.
“I’m so grateful for all of his help. He has been so open and given me a lot of feedback. I think I was really lucky to work with him”, Iva rounds off the Teams conversation.
 

Useful for the centre

“Corona has made it difficult to do international activities in a normal way”, Tomas Moe Skjølsvold notes, “but students like Iva provide important impulses. She has done a really good job under difficult conditions, and the interviews she has conducted will also be used for research purposes. I hope we soon can welcome more students and researchers from abroad back to our campuses and research communities!”