Since its establishment in 2000 as a legal entity governed by private law with non-profit status, the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas stands at the forefront of basic and applied research, tackling complex challenges that afflict society.
Climate change, sustainable energy, artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, Internet of Things, holistic approaches to healthcare and nutrition, autonomous vehicles smart cities of the future and circular economy, are the primal fields around which CERTH’s five (5) institutes are organized. Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute – CPERI, Information Technologies Institute – ITI, Hellenic Institute of Transport – HIT, Institute of Applied Biosciences – INAB, and Bio-economy and Agro-Technology Institute, bring together more than 1100 people (engineers and scientists in their majority), in 6 regions and 7 cities.
CERTH is supervised by the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation (GSRI) of the Greek Ministry of Development & Investments, nevertheless is essentially a self-supported Research Centre, generating a turnover of over € 55 Million in the last year (2020), while it is one of the top research and development employers for highly qualified personnel in the region of Northern Greece. Being a unique centre of research excellence, CERTH is currently ranked in the 14th position among the EU Research Centers in terms of H2020 Net EU Contribution and has received numerous awards and distinctions (including: EU Descartes Prize, ERC Advanced Grant, REG-POT Grant, Trading Agent Competition Award etc.).
Moreover, CERTH excels in innovation as indicated by the numerous industrial collaborations with worldwide acknowledged companies (14% of its annual incomes derive from bilateral industrial research projects) and the development of innovative entrepreneurship (16 spin-off companies currently operating).
Through all of the years, CERTH has evolved from an isle to a centre of excellence and envisages having a catalytic role in the new era of co-evolutionary research systems. CERTH’s vision is to become a common space of facilities that enables interaction of four different types of activities, these of: research, education, innovation and entrepreneurship and considers them a prerequisite in order to provide synergetic solutions to the big and complex societal challenges.
