Evrim Ursavas has been very successful in obtaining external funding for her research. She is currently an associate professor at FEB and her research field is in Supply Chain Design with an emphasis on Energy and Logistics. These are both very important sectors with strong economic impacts and employment opportunities. Energy is a fundamental element of the economy within the Netherlands, being an important energy hub in the Northwest European market.

Ursavas stresses the importance of the projects: “In the Netherlands alone, a turnover of 55 billion euro annually and an employment of 813,000 people is achieved in the transport and logistics sector. As an academic leader of two projects, and a partner in two, I can contribute to new knowledge and methods to tackle relevant problems, explore new approaches for connecting academia and society, with particular focus on the Northern Netherlands.”

Energy projects

The first project Ursavas is involved with is the HEAVENN project within the H2020 EU program. The aim of this project is to transform the Northern Netherlands into a hub of green hydrogen energy. It examines how to build on the existing infrastructure of the gas industry to develop large-scale production of green hydrogen, an energy resource produced from renewable sources. With the University of Groningen as its academic lead, HEAVENN is a public-private partnership that brings together a range of bodies from local municipalities with energy, real estate and transport companies with a total budget of 90 million euros. Two PhD candidates have been appointed on this project and they are currently working on the logistics of hydrogen distribution to refueling stations and the integration of renewables into the grid system.

The second project is the ULAADS project, EU- Urban Logistics as an on-Demand Service. Ursavas is a partner in a consortium of 22 partners with a total budget of 3 million euros led by three municipalities. A PhD candidate is currently working on innovative methods for delivery options in on-demand economy.

In 2021, she also received € 825 K for FEB within the H2020 EU research project ConsenCUS, in which industrial and academic partners from The Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom, Romania, Greece, China and Canada cooperate to reduce the worldwide CO2 emissions. This grant was used to appoint three additional PhD candidates. Ursavas is the  project leader for this over 13 million euros EU project. The current focus of the PhD candidates are on CO2 clusters network design and on investment decisions for carbon reduction technologies.

In another project she is recently involved in within the Interreg HyTrEc2 programme (Hydrogen Transport Economy for the North Sea Region) she will be working towards the development of Hydrogen solutions in airport ground power equipment at the Groningen Airport Eelde where the aim is to build the first Hydrogen Valley airport in the EU.

“The energy sector is especially now very critical. Not only do we have to strive to reach our climate targets to stabilize our climate but we also have to carefully rethink our energy security and dependency on Russia. Research on new business and economic models is therefore crucial to ensure access to a more reliable, sustainable and affordable energy supply for the Netherlands.”

For more information, please contact Evrim Ursavas (e.ursavas@rug.nl).