Europe-Tunisia scientific cooperation: ETRERA Project

The project "Empowering Tunisian Renewable Energy Research Activities" (ETRERA) is funded by European Community-FP7 under REGPOT-2009-2 Action, an action finalized to empower the research cooperation in innovation between the European and the Mediterranean countries. ETRERA project is aimed at the creation of a research network on renewable energy sources (RES), hydrogen (H2) and fuel cell (FC) technologies involving as primary actors the Tunisian "Research and Technology Center of Energy" (CRTEn), and three European entities: 1) Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies "N. Giordano" of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ITAE); 2) Polytechnic School of Nantes University (Polytech'Nantes), France; 3) Innova Business Innovation Centre (InnovaBIC), Italy. Starting from this nucleus we like to develop an Euro-Mediterranean network dedicated to RES, H2 and FC technologies. The project started in 2010 will be completed in June 2013. The project was centred on fuel cell technology, because up to 2010 there was not a lab dedicated to FC in Tunisia. Along the project partners have been involved in coordinated activities to reinforce the research structure of CRTEn. A new research lab dedicated to research on polymer electrolyte fuel cells was built up at CRTEn. The recruitment of four researchers, with abroad working or studying experience, and one engineer was carried out to increase the research capacities and the human potential of CRTEn. The experience of CNR-ITAE and Polytech'Nantes on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies, spanning from material preparation to the system integration, was shared by exchange of researchers, the organization of seminars and collaborative research activities on polymer electrolyte fuel cells was done. The Innova BIC's experience in technological communication allow to reach a wide European visibility. Infact, dissemination was a very important aspect of the project, and it was carried out through a set of actions aimed at increasing the visibility of the partners and related research activities to obtain a wide dissemination of the project results to scientific community and European and Tunisian industries. Along the way we encountered political and social problems (Arab spring) and the necessity to merge also different administrative approach. We like to report here our experience and the obtained results, lesson learnt and our proposition for the future.