In his introduction centre manager Knut Marthinsen gave a short recap on the vision and purpose of the centre, our main activities and status of the centre development.
The consortium meetings are good arenas for exchange of ideas and learning about the latest scientific findings. The first day of the meeting there were presentations of scientific highlights from the five research areas.

Valuable input from the Scientific Advisory Committee

Two members from the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) were attending the meeting: Aude Simar from UC Louvain in Belgium and Dorte Juul Jensen from DTU in Denmark. 

SFI PhysMet aims to be a world leading research Centre in the field of physical metallurgy, required to accelerate the transformation of the national metal industry towards more sustainable and cost-efficient production.  The mandate of the SAC is to help secure that the structure, activities and research in SFI PhysMet comply with the centre aims and to give advice about research directions and how to maintain high international standards. 
Professors Simar and Jensen had prepared many questions to the various research areas and gave valuable input to the centre. It is of significant value to the centre to get feedback from external experts, and we highly appreciate their contributions. 

Poster session

The scientific highlights were presented with talks from the research area members and with poster presentations.

Twelve of the PhDs and young researchers connected to the centre had prepared posters. The poster session is an excellent arena for more informal exchange of ideas and discussions between centre members. 

Research vs Innovation

Innovation and innovation potential was the topic for the second day of the meeting. How do we define innovation and how can we utilize results with innovation potential within the SFI consortium? Magnus Eriksson presented a tool developed to identify and follow up on scientific results that have innovation potential in the SFI. The purpose is to enable industry partners to utilize results and to identify new ideas that can be taken further by the partners.

Trond Furu from Hydro and Gro Eide from Elkem presented expectations and challenges from the industry point of view. The talks were followed by group discussions. Innovation potential is a topic that absorbs and concerns all partners in an SFI, and there were fruitful and enthusiastic discussions in all groups! 

Meetings with participation from all partners is an important success criterion and essential to ensure positive centre development. We are looking forward to the next consortium meeting, in November 2023!

All photos: Kari Håland, NTNU