SAMCoT - Annual Report 2015

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4 SAMC oT • ANNUAL REPORT 2015
Seven Centres for Research-Based Innovation (SFI) supported
by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) were evaluated in
2015 in one-day site visits by teams of four experts chosen by
the RCN. Two of the experts had competence to evaluate the
Centre from a scientific point of view, while the other, “gen-
eralists”, had experience of similar programs for universi-
ty-industry research collaboration on an international level.
The generalists evaluated the management, organization and
funding of the Centres, and also their interactions with user
partners in terms of mutual mobility of researchers, transfer
of results and encouraging innovation.
THE EVALUATION PROCESS HAD TWO MAIN PURPOSES:
• To form the basis for a decision by RCN on whether to con-
tinue financing each individual Centre for the final three
years of the eight-year term
• To comment on and give advice to the Centres on their
activity and how it should be improved in the form of
recommendations.
On March 10th 2015 the evaluation team from the Research
Council of Norway met with the SAMCoT Director, the Centre
Management Group, PhD students, post-docs, representa-
tives of the host institution, representatives of the industrial
and public partners of SAMCoT and the chair of the SAMCoT
Board. The discussions centered on the research at SAMCoT
followed by a meeting with the PhDs and post-docs as well
as further discussions on the management and organizational
structure of SAMCoT.
The final evaluation from the RCN is available at the
Sentre for forskningsdrevet innovasjon (SFI) website
(see Evaluation report SFI-II (PDF - 978 KB).
EVALUATION HIGHLIGHTS:
• The centre showed an excellent and relevant internationally
recognised research environment. The research profile of
the Centre in ice science and engineering is very high, and
the Centre is internationally visible and well recognised.
The Centre is clearly visible to its peers in the scientific
community. This visibility has been secured by publishing
in the key journal, Cold Regions and Science and Tech-
nology, and in particular by presentations at international
ice conferences. Importantly they are also organizing and
hosting two key international conferences - POAC 2015
and the IAHR Ice Symposium 2020.
• The overall management is good and the different bodies,
Board, EIAC, CMG and SAC have clear missions and roles in
relation to each other. The centre has excellent support from
the host institution and its partners. The centre also demon-
strates the capability to change direction when needed for
example the interventions in WP1 and WP6. It was gratify-
ing to see the good cohesion of all research environments
despite the number and geographical dispersion of the
partners. The panel also observed good financial gearing,
that included a combination of in kind and cash contribution
from a well-managed partnership with international industri-
al partners.
• Discussions with the student and post-doc community
confirmed their enthusiasm for working on the challeng-
ing problems of ice and the Arctic environment. The group
was extremely supportive and confident, that their work
was delivering real value with good consequences for
their employability.
Green Light!
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