29.10.2008 Helmholtz Head Office

European Energy Research Alliance

Leading energy research organisations from ten EU countries have formed an alliance to promote energy research in Europe. The Helmholtz Association is the German partner.

"The Helmholtz Association is the largest publicly funded energy research organisation in Germany, running projects that cover a whole spectrum of research fields from renewable energy sources to efficient energy conversion and nuclear fusion. This means that we are already a leading partner in many European research projects," says Prof. Jürgen Mlynek, President of the Helmholtz Association. Prof. Harald Bolt will be the Helmholtz Association representative in the newly established European Energy Research Alliance (EERA). He is currently on the board of directors at Forschungszentrum Jülich in the Helmholtz Association, where he is the Divisional Director for Energy and Environment. Dr. René Gail, also from Jülich, has been elected Secretary of EERA.

The alliance comprises research organisations from Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK. The participating organisations have an annual collective energy research budget of over €1.3 billion. The Helmholtz Association’s budget for its Energy research area in 2007 was €358 million.

The aim of EERA is to stimulate joint research initiatives that focus on new energy technologies. The alliance was formed as part of the Strategic Energy Technologies Plan (SET Plan) that aims to unite the research capacities of European industry and Europe’s largest research organisations and universities.

For more information, please visit: www.eera-set.eu

The Helmholtz Association contributes to solving major challenges facing society, science and the economy with top scientific achievements in six research fields: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, Transport and Space. With 28,000 employees in 15 research centres and an annual budget of approximately 2.4 billion euros, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation. Its work follows in the tradition of the great natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894).

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