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Annual Report 2014
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NOWITECH
Norwegian Research Centre for Offshore Wind Technology
Centre Management
The objective of the Centre Management is to manage and coordinate the activities of NOWITECH,
ensuring progress and cost control according to approved plans.
The Centre Management Group (CMG) is led by the Centre Director and consists of a management team
including Centre Manager, the Work Package leaders; the SC lead, vice-lead and secretary; the CIC chair
and the project secretary of NOWITECH. Management staff is appointed to follow up on administrative,
financial and legal issues supporting the Centre Director in the day-to-day operation of NOWITECH.
The Centre Director is responsible for progress and cost control of the project according to approved
Working Plans. The Centre Director has the responsibility and the authority to execute management
tasks in accordance with the Working Plan, the Consortium Agreement and the Contract and monitor
Parties’ compliance with their obligations.
The work is divided into Management and Outreach as outlined below.
The Management
activity takes care of the day-to-day operation of the Centre, scientific leadership
and strategy development. The day-to-day operation includes follow up on administrative, budgeting,
financial and membership legal aspects; meetings in the CMG with WP leaders and representatives
from the SC and CIC, preparations for the GA and Board, and reporting to the RCN. CMG meetings have
been held on a monthly basis during 2014. These are for team-building, information exchange and
strategic discussions. Work on strategic development was enhanced on initiative from the Board through
establishment of a taskforce with representatives from industry and research. The Centre management
was facilitating the process throughout the winter and spring 2014, culminating in a strategy work-
shop at Gardermoen in May and reporting to the Board in August and November. The task force process
gave very valuable results, including SWOT analysis, scientific quality review, prioritization of research
activities and organization.
The Outreach activity
includes preparing general presentations of the Centre, dissemination of results,
keeping contact with prospective new industry parties, overall coordination towards other projects,
relevant organisations and CEER’s, in particular NORCOWE, and engagement in developing new off-
shore wind research projects and strategies. The Centre management is engaged in this also through
CIC and SC. Dissemination activities by the management in 2014 included hosting delegations visiting
NOWITECH, especially there has been interest from Japan, preparation of media contributions, keep-
ing web and e-room updated, preparation of newsletters, organization of the “Industry meets Science”
seminars and the annual offshore wind R&D conference in Trondheim, EERA DeepWind’2014, see also
Communication and dissemination. The management contact with industry partners resulted in Fugro
OCEANOR AS re-joining as partner in NOWITECH in December 2014, and Norsk Automatisering AS
(NAAS) expecting to join in 2015.
John Olav Giæver Tande,
Director NOWITECH
Hans Christian Bolstad,
Manager NOWITECH