The Ministry of Energy Triple Helix Initiative has been launched during UAE Innovation Week. The initiative is envisioned to support the development, design, demonstration and diffusion of innovative research projects relevant to the UAE industrial sector.
The Triple Helix Approach defines a movement toward collaborative relationships among the three major institutional spheres (government, academia and industry), in which innovation is increasingly an outcome of interactions among the spheres rather than a prescription from government or an internal development within industry. Through such research projects, the initiative seeks to strengthen the competitiveness of the UAE economy while achieving a substantial reduction in energy consumption and environmental impact.
The first Triple Helix based tri-lateral agreement was co-signed between Emirates Steel, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Energy. The project seeks to convert the Electric Arc Furnace dust generated at Emirates Steel into suitable materials for construction and buildings in an economically viable manner. The agreement was co-signed by Fatima Mohammed Al Foora, Assistant Under-Secretary for Electricity, Clean Energy and Desalinated Water Affairs at Ministry of Energy, Saeed Ghumran Al Romaithi, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Steel and Dr. Steve Griffiths, Vice President Research and Professor of Practice at Masdar Institute, today at the Conrad Hotel, Dubai.
The Triple Helix initiative is in line with the UAE Innovation Week under the patronage of Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The week long activities seek to highlight innovative projects which could maintain UAE’s competitiveness globally and boost diversification efforts.
This is also in line with UAE’s strategic vision to compete internationally through knowledge and innovation rather than cheap energy. UAE aims to develop, share and export knowledge to replace traditional sources of revenue.
There is no second opinion that research is crucial for innovation. UAE current annual investment in innovation is worth AED 14 billion in the UAE, of which AED 7 billion goes to research and development (2014). Question is how much of such research is actually innovative and leads to products which have a market value rather than just a shelf value.
To encourage applied research, the Triple Helix initiative seek to raise the profile of local research institutions and encourage local companies to use home grown research institutions in applied research projects, especially for energy and water sectors. The Ministry of Energy says that this is an important building block currently missing in the nation’s research infrastructure, and seeks to cultivate such partnerships.
The Ministry of Energy seeks to highlight the capabilities of our local research institutions which are not being used effectively by local industries which mostly rely on consultancies and foreign institutions.
Emirates Steel has also been part of the first CO2 capture, usage and storage project in the Middle East in partnership with Masdar and ADNOC. The huge initiative includes three elements: industrial capture of the CO2 from the Emirates Steel’s facilities, compression, dehydration and transportation of the CO2 from the Masdar carbon capture facility (CCF) to an ADNOC onshore oil field, and finally, use of injected CO2 for enhanced oil recovery. The project will liberate precious natural methane gas (traditionally used to pressurize oil wells and aid oil recovery) to instead be used for traditional power generation and water desalination. The project will sequester up to 730,000 tons of CO2 annually, which is equivalent to planting around 100,000 trees – a massive contribution to reducing Emirates Steel’s carbon footprint.
Source: Emirates news agency
