|
CENTROPE opens minds and borders for science
For Austrian scientist Eduard Stefan Buzetzki, CENTROPE is an opportunity for the region to merge its know-how – and thus to keep up with rapidly growing economies such as India or China, which seem to speed away, especially when it comes to new technologies.
“CENTROPE is an opportunity to guarantee scientists that their work is successful, that technologies can be developed and that the region will prosper in the long term”, says Austrian scientist Eduard Buzetzki from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU), where “clean technology” is a very important issue.
“Studying abroad opens up a lot of different prospects”, says the engineer, who is currently working on a new way to produce third-generation bio-fuels. The Institute of Physical Chemistry is among the most productive units at STU. The collaborators of the Institute publish approximately 60 papers yearly; their work is cited about 500 times per year. At the University of Bratislava, he was welcomed with arms wide open, Buzetzki adds, “I have noted that the people in Slovakia, especially in the area of Bratislava, are more open and the study environment, too, is even better than in Austria.” That may well be the reason why the Austrian scientist is currently researching in Bratislava and not at an Austrian institution.
Being open-minded is one of the keys to success for Eduard Buzetzki although the willingness to embrace co-operation among scientists should be strengthened as well. In his opinion, a network platform is called for, and he is certain that CENTROPE is the right instrument for this purpose. “CENTROPE is absolutely needed”. So far, a special four-country promotion is still only wishful thinking, although its realisation could be a booster for cross-border research. When it comes to the actual implementation of a project, co-operation between partners is also more successful if an external actor takes over co-ordination and manages the subsidy cash flow, as Buzetzki knows from experience. It is like a soccer game, he explains. There is one referee who has the final say, while the players must act according to special rules. For him, the only disadvantage in project implementation is that costs have to be pre-financed. “If you have to build something in order to embark on your research work, costs can be very high for small enterprises, which may mean financial difficulties for them. Here, in any case, the funding bodies are in charge of that”, Buzetzki adds.
During his career as an inventor and scientist, Buzetzki has worked and studied in Austria, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland and Slovakia. “Cultural differences exist, of course”, he emphasises, “but especially when it comes to aspects like problem-solving, this is not an obstacle – quite the contrary.” He views scientists’ different approaches to a specific problem as a definite plus. Neither is language a barrier to co-operation, Buzetzki underlines. In most cases, English is the language of choice. Especially in technology, there are physical or chemical principles that have the same validity all over the world.
You are here > home > Newsletter 1/2011 > A researcher´s view