The Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH, www.certh.gr) is one of the largest research centres in Greece; top 1 in north Greece. It was founded in 2000 and is located in Thessaloniki. Its mission is to promote the triplet Research – Development – Innovation by conducting high quality research and developing innovative products and services while building strong partnerships with industry and strategic collaborations with academia and other research and technology organisations in Greece and abroad. CERTH consists of five (5) Institutes and the Central Directorate and is governed by its Board of Directors. The institutes are: the Information Technologies Institute (ITI, www.iti.gr), the Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute (CPERI), the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT), the Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB), and the Institute of Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (iBO). CERTH is essentially a self-supported Research Centre generating an average annual turnover of ~ € 25 Million coming from: >30% from bilateral industrial research contracts, >60% from competitive research projects, and <10% as government institutional funding.
More than 1000 people work at CERTH with the majority being scientists. CERTH has received numerous awards and distinctions such as the European Descartes Prize, the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, Microsoft International Contest Prize, the Trading Agents Competition Award and many more and is listed among the Top-25 of the EU’s Organisations with the highest participation in H2020 competitive research grants. CERTH has participated successfully in more than 1.200 competitive research projects (with a total budget exceeding 450 M€ and involving more than 4.410 international partner organizations) financed by the European Union (EU), leading industries from USA, Japan and Europe and the Greek Government via the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT). More specifically, CERTH has been involved in 613 EU funded research projects (318 H2020 (with a total Net EU contribution of 145.953.045€), 259 FP7, 14 RFCS, 1 EMFF, 3 3HP, 11 CIP, 6 EPLUS, 1 JUST) acting as Project Coordinator in 136, beneficiary in 443 and 3rd party in 6 of them. CERTH’s research results (more than 350 publications/year) have significant scientific impact (about 7.100 heterocitations/year).
Since 2003, CERTH has been appointed by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) as the coordinator of the Greek EURAXESS Network, a European initiative aiming at offering personalised assistance to mobile researchers. In 2008, CERTH was among the first Greek research organisations to undersign and accept the principles of the Charter and Code for researchers while at the same time CERTH’s representatives were members of the Greek delegation at the Steering Group for Human Resources and Mobility (SG HRM). Its latest achievement in the field of human resources is the “HR EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH” logo awarded by the EC in April 2012 as a proof that CERTH is committed to offer the best possible working conditions, regardless the socioeconomic environment, and at the same time work towards the realisation of the European Research Area (Innovation Union, Commitment #4). CERTH is involved in strong and long- term collaborations with significant international partners. From the five institutes of CERTH, the Institute ITI coordinates and participates in PestNu project.
The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) was founded in 1998 as a non-profit organisation under the auspices of the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Greek Ministry of Development, with its head office located in Thessaloniki, Greece. Since 10/03/2000 it is a founding member of CERTH. CERTH/ITI is one of the leading Institutions of Greece in the fields of Informatics, Telematics and Telecommunications, with long experience in numerous European and national R&D projects. It is active in a large number of application sectors (energy, buildings and construction, health, manufacturing, robotics, (cyber)security, transport, smart cities, space, agri-food, marine and blue growth, water, etc.) and technology areas such as data and visual analytics, data mining, machine and deep learning, virtual and augmented reality, image processing, computer and cognitive vision, human computer interaction, IoT and communication technologies, navigation technologies, cloud and computing technologies, distributed ledger technologies (blockchain), (semantic) interoperability, system integration, mobile and web applications, hardware design and development, smart grid technologies and solutions and social media analysis. CERTH/ITI has participated in more than 535 research projects and R&D contracts with the Private Sector (Industry). More specifically, it has been involved in 314 EU funded research projects (167 FP7 & 147 H2020) and in 221 projects funded by Greek National Research Programmes and Consulting Subcontracts with the industry (87 National; 8 Interreg and 126 R&D contracts). The current ITI projects consists of 116 ongoing projects (including EU and national projects, contracts and services), which are currently active with a total budget more than 47k€. For the last 10 years, the publication record of ITI includes more than 330 scientific publications in international journals, more than 780 publications in conferences and 100 books and book chapters. These works have been cited in more than 7.500 times. CERTH/ITI has a staff of approximately 410 people (including 11 senior researchers, 261 research assistants and associates, 82 Postdoctoral Research Fellows, 11 Collaborative Faculty Members, 4 Administrative and Technical Employees). From CERTH-ITI participates the Additive Manufacturing Unit, VARLab and the Cognitive and Robotics Lab.