Central European Platform for Plasma-enabled Surface Engineering begins

CEPLANT center embarks on a new project. Prof. Petr Vašina and his team are coordinators of the new project named Central European Platform for Plasma-enabled Surface Engineering (COLOSSE) which connects three Czech and Slovak research facilities.

The goal of COLOSSE is to increase the participation of Czech and Slovak plasma-enabled surface engineering R&I centers Horizon Europe and future EU Framework Programs for R&I. The project connects three institutions: Masaryk University in Brno, University of West Bohemia in Plzeň, and Comenius University in Bratislava.

The three research centers of COLOSSE have been supported by major ERDF investments in the recent decade. Their mission is to perform cutting-edge science with enabling potential for the development of novel technologies. They have been shaping and supporting their regional ecosystems for over a decade, creating networks of interactions that facilitate knowledge transfer and exploitation of surface engineering technologies. They have also developed international connections – which, however, have led only to isolated cases of involvement in international R&I projects.

These three centers have joined together to promote their publicity and visibility on the European R&D field map. Together, they will extend the good practices in research by recruiting new post-doc staff from abroad and presenting their research activities at European R&D centers, conferences, and trade fairs. They also plan to organize hard- and soft-skills training and two Ph.D. retreat conferences with international overlap for their early-stage researchers and doctoral students.

COLOSSE's kick-off meeting was held on 4 and 5 April 2024 at the Dean's office at MU Faculty of Science. The meeting between the research centers and the project office was introductory, and practical aspects of the project were discussed. Now, the COLOSSE leaders, researchers, and research managers are eager to finalize project strategies that will allow them to embark on the internationalization and up-skilling trajectory of the project.