LINXS Networking Event Summary

Audience piling in for the afternoon session on Day 1

Audience piling in for the afternoon session on Day 1

LINXS interaction with industry and external relations

The EU via the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket) are funding a subproject at LINXS where we look at how companies and other external organisations can collaborate and mutually benefit. Lennart Gisselsson, part of the organizing team and also Partner Manager of external and industry relations at Lund University is coordinating this project. During the conference we had many interesting discussions with industry and other organisational representatives and many noteworthy matters were raised on the topic of collaboration.

Magnus Larsson (in lieu of Tomas Lundqvist) talking about industry use of MAX IV and ESS

Magnus Larsson (in lieu of Tomas Lundqvist) talking about industry use of MAX IV and ESS

From the Grapevine

A few reccurring subjects that came up were the fact that companies that often already collaborate with international scholars could use LINXS to host these people and embed them in a stimulating environment. Another interesting point brought forward was that some companies and organisations have been doing some things in a similar vein to what LINXS aims to do (although on a minor scale) and that LINXS can benefit from their experience.

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Networking with open reseach infrastructures

After the last speaker the guests were treated to a networking session. One of the major goals of LINXS is to act as a neutral hub around which different actors from academia, infrastructures and society & businesses can find each other, explore possibilities and collaborate. Not many people know that there are many open research infrastructures associated with Lund University and the ecosystem in the region. Being an open research infrastructure means that you are open for use to external users, be they academic or private.

Dmytro Orlov showcases the infrastructure available in their open lab at Materials Engineering

Dmytro Orlov showcases the infrastructure available in their open lab at Materials Engineering

We invited many of these stakeholders to exhibit in our networking session, and the discussions were very dynamic. A major outcome was making these aware of each other and in particular among the open labs themselves - we foresee that there will be more of these matchmaking events where the open infrastructures can learn from each others' experiences and get exposure.

Apart from MAX IV, ESS and Science Village Scandinavia (SVS) the stakeholders and open labs represented at the Network Exhibition were (in alphabetical order):

  • 4D Imaging Lab - an open facility for 3D and 4D x-ray tomographic imaging of internal structures of bulk materials and objects
  • Biofilms research Center for Biointerfaces at Malmö Högskola, which has an Open Lab where you can rent state of the art instrumentation
  • BioMS - Swedish national infrastructure for biological mass spectrometry, including the HDX-MS platform for probing protein conformation, dynamics, and interactions
  • DARKLab - the Laboratory for Digital Archaeology, a research group focused on surveying and analysing archaelological sites by means of 3D combined technologies
  • CMPS - The Center for Molecular Protein Science which can do SAXS, high-throughput crystallization and NMR
  • LBIC - Lund university Bioimaging centre which has different MR facilities, microscopy and the national 7 Tesla Swedish Bioimaging facility
  • The Lund Nano Lab - a 650 meter square ISO 5-7 cleanroom facility for cutting edge nanofabrication with about 150 current active users (23% commercial)
  • LP3 - The Lund Protein Production Platform, a cross-faculty facility for protein production, purification and crystallization
  • The LINX project - a Danish project to link industry users to neutrons and x-rays (the similarity of acronym is purely accidental)
  • The Loop Science + Business - a SKANSKA project to create a new kind of meeting place and hub in Science Village Scandinavia
  • Materials Business Center - operated by Innovation Skåne and focusing on creating the right conditions for new business in the form of entrepreneurial companies utilising new materials
  • The Materials Engineering laboratory at LTH - an open lab with mechanical testing and preparation facilities (useful in combination with other facilities)

We will contact all non-academic representatives individually and try to pick up on your thoughts on how LINXS can benefit from and contribute to industry and business.

For more information or if you have any comments please do not hesitate to contact Lennart Gisselsson

This event was in part sponsored by a contribution from the EU Regional development fund

This event was in part sponsored by a contribution from the EU Regional development fund

Martin Stankovski