Putting sustainability research into action - Stavros Niarchos Foundation

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s (SNF) grant to the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH) was made during the peak of the socioeconomic crisis in Greece in the mid-2010s.

It was part of our Recharging the Youth Initiative, a €100 million effort to support, via a variety of individual projects, young people who were experiencing unprecedented levels of insecurity due to unemployment. Our thought process in the grant to CERTH was this: how can we help early-career researchers by providing the infrastructure and means for them to carry on their work in Greece, while also strengthening the country’s potential for development and helping curb and eventually reversing the brain drain that had already had a significant impact? In the same vein, similar grants were made to other Greek research and academic institutions during the same period.

The main goal of SNF’s grant to CERTH was to support applied and innovative research by providing infrastructure to nurture collaboration. In 2021, this process led to the creation ENERGO/The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Hub for the Research and Adoption of Sustainable Energy Sources while the building that would host its activities was still under construction. Research on clean energy sources and putting findings to use for sustainable industry must start today. The name “ENERGO” (meaning “to act” in Greek) is inspired by the need for immediate action and reflects the intention that the new infrastructure will offer an active practical response to today’s challenges through research activity and the immediate application of results. ENERGO/The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Hub for the Research and Adoption of Sustainable Energy Sources is intended to function as a new collaborative space aimed at promoting domestic and international applied research and, ultimately, benefiting society as a whole.

SNF’s grant to CERTH also included a dynamometer for heavy vehicles (e.g. trucks, buses, etc.), which makes CERTH the only public research center in Greece—and one of the few in Europe—to feature this type of infrastructure. This new resource gives the organization a comparative advantage in terms of generating automotive industry solutions with a view to sustainable development, and further enhances the multifaceted mission and activities of this leading Greek research institution.