ZČU has completed the last of four research centers for 625 million

Plzeň - The University of West Bohemia (ZČU) has completed the last of its four research centers in Plzeň. This is the Regional Innovation Center of Electrical Engineering (RICE) worth 625 million crowns, where 150 researchers are already working. It has addressed and continues to address 36 projects of applied and fundamental research, some international, totaling over two billion crowns, said the center's director Petr Frýbl from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering to ČTK.

"A new building has been completed and in the first quarter, researchers will be moving in and equipping laboratories. RICE has entered the sustainability phase," said ZČU spokesperson Kamila Kolářová. The construction was originally supposed to last a year and a half, but was delayed by half a year; the EU funded 85 percent, while the state contributed 15 percent. Over 480 million crowns were invested, of which 200 million crowns went to technology related to the building and 100 million crowns to equipment.

Another approximately 140 million crowns were allocated for the operation of the center, which researchers began to receive in September 2010 and exhausted last year. Since January, RICE, similar to another 47 centers in the Czech Republic, has started to draw funds from the National Sustainability Program, which will cover up to 40 percent of operational costs. The rest is being sourced from the Technology Agency (TAČR) and the Czech Grant Agency for research, development, and testing for businesses.

At the end of December, RICE received 113 million crowns from the National Sustainability Program to support a five-year project on New Technologies and Concepts for Intelligent Industrial Systems. An additional 95 million crowns will be secured by five large competence centers financed by TAČR by 2019. The third pillar of financial stability will be the sale of licenses and contract research for companies, from which 100 million crowns is expected to flow in. The center currently has three four-hundred-million projects - CANUT (advanced nuclear technologies), CIDAM (power electronics), and CKDV (Center of Competence for Railway Vehicles).

"We have managed to create new jobs and build a team that has achieved excellent results in addressing the research program Intelligent Industrial Systems," stated scientific director Zdeněk Peroutka. According to him, this resulted in several patents, including European ones, and numerous awards from conferences and exhibitions. In collaboration with industrial partners, RICE has developed a modular control system REMCS, a smart intervention suit, and gloves for firefighters.

A unique feature is the convertible hall laboratory and the testing facility for high-voltage power electronics and transportation system drives. "We can test motors up to four megawatts, while a locomotive has two megawatts. About 50 meters away, in the adjacent building, there will be a microscope that has an allowable vibration of ten nanometers," said Frýbl. RICE will be the only center in the Czech Republic with Aerosol Jet Printing. It can print electronic components with a width of ten nanometers, while a human hair is 70 nanometers thick.