Interview with Christina Garcia Duffy, EERA JP Wind manager and Technical Director at ORE Catapult, UK.
It’s about the NeWindEERA strategy – and establishment of a European Centre of Excellence – that outlines a research vision towards 2050 and a plan to preserve European leadership on wind. This includes enabling mobility for researchers, facilitating knowledge exchange across geographies, and coordinating large-scale industrial testing and validation infrastructures among EERA JP Wind members. The goal is to ensure that Europe has full capability in wind energy research, exploring public-private partnerships that both researchers and industry can exploit, and exploring different, more simple mechanisms to secure necessary funding.
Among others, she emphasises the need to now “… enable our talent, our researchers, our skills, to move across geographies, and how can we do knowledge exchange and lastly, infrastructures”. Her messages on the #NeWindEERA initiatives and a Centre of Excellence include:
- Coordinate large-scale industrial testing and validation infrastructures among JP Wind members.
- Ensure Europe has full capability in wind energy research for industry and partners to exploit.
- Explore public-private partnerships and update strategies to leverage funding from both industry and public sectors.
“Now going forward, we have already this strategy. We have the plan”, Cristina continues. “The SRIA outlines a need for a certain amount of funding. It is time that we move together with the European Commission and individual member states (…) And then just get on delivering on the vision.”
In a time where facts about wind energy and climate change are being negotiated as opinions, there really is a need to put science back on the map. It could start with a shared 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 with strong messaging that can drive change and create a shared sense common-cause 🍀
Aligned with the wind energy industry
The strategy of the European research community sustains sustains the EC’s REPowerEU and the ‘Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda’ (SRIA), developed by the wind industry, and recently presented at the DeepWind and WindEurope conferences, identifying the need to:
- 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝-𝐮𝐩: accelerate wind energy growth.
- 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞-𝐮𝐩: maintain competitiveness.
- 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝: increase wind viability.
- 𝐄𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: improve societal and environmental impact.
𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬:
– The release of the “From Innovation to Industrial Competitiveness” report at the WindEurope 2025 conference: Link
– Ursula von der Leyen’s ‘𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞’ speech from 5 Maj 2025: Link
𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬:
Adel El Gammal, Secretary General of EERA: “an urgent call for defragmentation of research innovation in Europe and to have a good integration of research innovation with industrial and trade policies.”
𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐓𝐮𝐛𝐞:
