The biggest research foundation in Greece and one of the most important in Europe, the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), is expanding into new premises in Chania. Two new buildings are to be erected on a site of 35 stremmata ceded to FORTH by the Technical University of Crete. One will house the Institute of GeoEnergy and the other a branch of the Science and Technology Park of Crete (STEP-C), which is devoted to technology transfer through the support of innovative spin-off companies, and the management and exploitation of intellectual property rights.
The move was announced by the chairman of the FORTH Board of Directors, Nektarios Tavernarakis, during an event celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of FORTH at the Dimitris Vlisidis Theatre in Koum Kapi, Chania, at the end of September. Professor Tavernarakis told Haniotika Nea: “Our goals for the next few years are in principle to see our new institutions growing in strength. We have founded four new Institutes in the past four years, so we want to see those Institutes standing on their own feet, and one of those is the Institute of GeoEnergy in Chania. In fact we are planning new buildings which should be completed within the next two years.”
“We have assured funding of more than €55 million from the Recovery Fund for new buildings in all the cities where FORTH is active,” Professor Tavernarakis explained. “In Chania it’s in an area next to the Technical University of Crete. It is a site of 35 stremmata which the University has very generously made over to us, next to its own campus.
“We have already prepared plans and got building permits for buildings there costing more than €11.5 million. Those will be completed within the next two years, as that is the timescale imposed by the Recovery Fund. The works must have been completed within two years. We have tender documents ready and by the end of the year we will have tendered the works in Chania, in Heraklion, in Patras and Ioannina.”
The works in Chania, he said, are firstly for the new building of the Institute of GeoEnergy, which is currently hosted in the University’s School of Mineral Resources Engineering but will now get its own, brand-new premises. The other building will be for the Science and Technology Park, which will acquire a branch in Chania. It will house innovative enterprises, many from the Technical University of Crete, but also other enterprises from Western Crete which will be interested in having this proximity to research laboratories.
On the 40 years of FORTH, Professor Tavernarakis had this to say: “It is worthy of commemoration that during these 40 years FORTH, from a small regional research foundation with a handful of staff at the beginning in Heraklion, has now become the biggest research foundation in the country with 10 institutes throughout the nation, including outside Crete. There are 5 institutes in Heraklion, one in Rethymnon and one in Chania – the Institute of GeoEnergy – and in Patras and Ioannina, while the Greek Institute of Human Genomics was founded very recently in Athens.
“During those 40 years, FORTH managed not only to become the country’s biggest research centre, but is now one of the biggest in Europe, with major successes, attracting international investments, highly competitive ones from the European Commission, from other international sources and producing highly important research work which is published in the best research journals in the world. Our researchers have received many awards and we are especially proud of all those achievements.”
According to an announcement this week, the tender for the works in Chania has now been issued for a total of €11,143,653 including VAT. The specification is for the construction of two new three-storey buildings with basement, one of 1,545 sq m and one of 1,750 sq m. Interested parties have to submit their tenders by 8th December, along with a guarantee payment of €179,736.
(Haniotika Nea, 29-09-23, 06-11-23)