Building Bridges: STU Staff Exchange Visit at LCM

18–22 May 2026, Linz, Austria

As part of the FreeTwinEV project’s commitment to building lasting research and innovation capacity at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, a delegation of STU staff travelled to Linz in May 2026 for a knowledge-transfer and capacity-building exchange hosted by the Linz Center of Mechatronics (LCM). The visit ran alongside the FreeTwinEV consortium meeting and the Battery Summer School, making it a particularly rich week of collaboration between the project partners.

A Week of Learning and Exchange

The programme was structured to give the STU delegation a comprehensive view of how LCM operates, not only as a research institution, but as an organization that bridges academia and industry, and translates scientific results into real-world impact.

The week opened on Monday afternoon with mutual presentations, allowing both sides to introduce their institutions, ongoing activities, and strategic priorities. This set the tone for the days that followed: open, practical, and focused on what each side could learn from the other.

Project Management Best Practices

Wednesday morning was dedicated to a session on best practices in research project management, a topic of direct relevance to STU as it continues to grow its involvement in competitive European funding programmes. The session drew on LCM’s experience managing complex, multi-partner projects and covered approaches to planning, reporting, coordination across institutions, and maintaining momentum over the full lifecycle of a project. For STU staff involved in running or supporting funded research, this kind of hands-on exchange of institutional know-how is difficult to replicate through formal training alone.

Technology Transfer and Knowledge Commercialisation

Wednesday afternoon focused on best practices in technology transfer, one of the areas where LCM has developed particularly strong expertise over the years. The discussion covered the full journey from research output to market application: how promising technologies are identified and evaluated, how collaboration with industrial partners is initiated and structured, what funding instruments are available to support the transition from basic research to applied development, and how framework agreements can make such collaborations smoother and more predictable for all parties involved.

For STU, which is working to strengthen its own technology transfer and industry engagement capabilities, the session offered both inspiration and practical guidance. The conversation touched on the ecosystem of funding programmes available to support R&D collaboration across different technology readiness levels, as well as models for structuring joint research projects with industry.

Scouting Calls and AI in Research Management

Thursday’s programme turned to the practical work of identifying and pursuing funding opportunities, with a session on call scouting, reviewing relevant open and upcoming calls across European and national programmes, followed by a discussion on the growing role of AI tools in research management. As the administrative and strategic demands on research offices continue to increase, tools that support literature monitoring, proposal development, and project tracking are becoming increasingly relevant for institutions like STU.

Closing Discussion

The week concluded on Friday with an open discussion, allowing participants to reflect on the insights gathered throughout the visit, identify concrete next steps, and think about how the exchange could inform STU’s own practices going forward.

Why It Matters

Staff exchanges of this kind are one of the less visible but highly valuable components of a Twinning project like FreeTwinEV. Beyond the joint research activities and publications, they create the conditions for institutional learning, helping STU develop the organizational capabilities that will support excellent research long after the project ends.

The visit to LCM in Linz was a practical demonstration of what the FreeTwinEV partnership is ultimately about: not just shared results, but shared growth.