Offshore staff
ABERDEEN, UK – Subsea UK and Scottish Enterprise have launched a joint call for R&D projects between Scotland and Japan.
This is a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Scottish Enterprise and the Nippon Foundation atOffshore Europe in September.
The agreement is designed to help the countries capitalize on opportunities in thesubsea market.
Both parties to the MoU will provide equal funding, totaling around £15 million ($20.15 million), to support joint projects involving use and development of digital technologies.
Subsea UK, in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and supported by the UK’s National Subsea Research Initiative and International Technology Facilitator, will supervise an R&D program to this end.
They are inviting organizations to solicit support for identifying how their ideas, products, and services could meet the needs of the evolving subsea market. Applications should relate to the following themes:
• Subsea digital oilfield technologies (real-time underwater communication, inspection, monitoring and control, subsea sensors, robotics and artificial intelligence)
• Subsea oil and gas innovation (well productivity and intervention, well design, low-cost drilling, decommissioning, subsea factory, remote monetization and challenging field development).
Interested parties may submit an expression of interest via the Subsea UK website by March 2018, with full proposal applications due by June 2018.
Neil Gordon, chief executive of Subsea UK, said: “Scotland already accounts for 14% of the global subsea market, with approximately 370 companies generating an estimated annual turnover of £7.5 billion [$10 billion]...
“We have worked closely with Scottish Enterprise over the past three years to help nurture the relationship and build trust between Japan and Scotland. This has been achieved by supporting Scottish Enterprise and its international arm SDI on trade missions to Japan which included numerous high-profile meetings and presentations with key Japanese organizations including the Nippon Foundation.”
ITF will provide expertise and specialist knowledge to support technical management of the call process.
12/04/2017
