Evolving EIRES

The EIRES strategy of early 2020 has formed the basis for the institute during its first years. Approaching its mid-term, EIRES is currently in the process of updating its strategy. One of the elements of this new strategy is a redefinition of the focus areas.

Over the past months, the EIRES core team has held several meetings to evaluate the progress made so far, and to determine the course for the next years. Though the mission and strategic goals remain the same, as a result of recent developments like the strongly disrupted energy markets due to the war in the Ukraine, post-Covid material and supply line issues, and new forms of funding and collaboration like the Groeifonds, the Just Transition Fund, or the Climate Initiative Netherlands, the EIRES team decided to adapt its organizational structure.

New challenge-based definitions of the focus areas are adopted to better accommodate, stimulate, facilitate and grow the research community activities, improve the involvement of a wider community, and make “left out topics” more visible. Moreover, this new organizational structure will enable the definition and implementation of longer-term research programs, which are initiated, either top-down by the focus Area leaders or bottom-up by PI’s from the departments. The new focus areas defined are:

• Systems transitions & scenario’s (STS)
• Energy transition in the built environment (ETB)
• Greening the process industry (GPI)
• Energy generation & storage (EGS)

In addition to the redefinition of focus areas, the computational energy research previously organized in the CCER community will be integrated in the EIRES organizational structure. The computational energy research activities will be organized across the focus areas, since they involve activities which are of importance in every focus area.