While we’re spending 2023 looking back on 20 years of RTDS Group, its always been a part of our philosophy to constantly review and reassess one key question: what is RTDS all about? What can we offer the ever-changing landscape of European innovation and research?
One of our in-house experts on dissemination and communication for EU projects, Ben Leitner, took on the task of answering precisely that.
What does RTDS do?
RTDS has a long record in the successful formulation and submission of proposals for EU-funded projects and, upon successful application, in the execution the resulting projects, in particular in the fields of sustainability and the EU Green Deal.
We offer a variety of proposal support and assume an objective and neutral role between the scientific initiators of the project. We believe that a carefully planning and balancing the composition of the partners is vital for successful collaboration during all stages of the project – it increases chances of being funded and, when the proposal has been accepted, of reaching the project’s targets.
We establish the framework within which partners can most effectively activate synergies and combine their expertise, knowledge, and skills to develop results to the benefit of the project partners, end users and, more broadly, society.
How does RTDS bring together partners? How do we make sure they are the right partners?
We usually begin with an industry partner and then help them build a consortium that represents all aspects in their value-chain. This requires an understanding of their, and the consortium partners’, activities and of the potential for them to exploit the new knowledge that the project seeks to generate. Our experience and our skilled team allow us to do exactly that at the highest professional level – efficiently, considerately, and impartially!
Above: RTDS founder, Stephen Webb, explaining how award-winning project, SUSBIND functions.
What differentiates RTDS from other companies that manage EU projects?
RTDS is the Austrian market leader in the development of EU-funded sustainability projects, offering a unique blend of experience, focus, and passion. We have coordinated, or are coordinating, six Horizon projects. In addition, we have four Bio-based Industry (BBI-JU) projects, of which we act as Coordinator in three. Overall, we have participated or are participating in sixteen Horizon projects, including six as Coordinator. We are very proud of the quality of work we provide and continuously strive to further improve our services.
Why should you get in touch with us?
We help our partners to enhance the scientific impact of their projects:
The scientific impact is results-based and produced by the scientific partners. Our projects are predominately not based on fundamental research, but build upon existing research. Usually, we work closely with industries seeking to implement a nascent technology. But we also help the RTOs develop licensing models and achieve more outreach for their publications. We carefully manage results, identifying, on the one hand what can be published as open data/science, and, on the other hand, what data must remain confidential to protect Intellectual Property and commercial interests. Finally, we offer social media management to maximise the impact of any publications etc. and reach the broadest range of stakeholders.
We help our partners to enhance the social, economic, and technical impact of their projects:
Our projects produce a positive social impact because they contribute to the advancement of new, more sustainable technologies, e.g. less harmful production processes. Additionally, they stimulate jobs in the sustainable industry sector. We are adept at helping move results towards new products in terms of their technology readiness levels to allow for market entry at a later stage. As part of this, we employ experts in intellectual property and business modelling to help recognise and maximise the potential impact of results gained.
Author: Ben Leitner, Communications Manager, RTDS
Date: 24th July 2023
All photos © RTDS