Steering & IP & Education Committees

Steering Committee

Within EIT RawMaterials, each Innovation Hub is locally supported by a Steering Committee. The committees consist of partner representatives, in each Innovation Hub. The Steering Committees provide guidance related to strategy and business planning, events planning, company policy and objectives, budgetary control, resource allocation and similar matters. Each Steering Committee is led by a Steering Committee Chair.

The present chairs are:

Rose-Marie Yttergren, Höganäs, Innovation Hub Baltic Sea

Etienne Bouyer, The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Innovation Hub Central

Prof. Katerina Adam, NTUA, Innovation Hub East

Linus Brander, RISE, Innovation Hub North

Francisco Javier Elorza, Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), Innovation Hub South

Marion Bechtold, KU Leuven, Innovation Hub West

Intellectual Property Committee

On 25 September 2015, the General Assembly of EIT RawMaterials e.V. unanimously approved the IP Committee of our Innovation Community. EIT RawMaterials gratitude goes out to them for their continued contributions and support.

The mandate of the IP Committee includes, amongst others things, advising the General Assembly, the Executive Board and the Management Team of EIT RawMaterials regarding any sort of IP issues that are related to the management of our KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) and of the projects of our partners. The Committee also supports the further development of the activity-specific IP rules, which will be communicated to our KIC ecosystem as soon as possible.

Tomi Erho

Aalto University, Innovation Hub Baltic Sea

Tomi Erho leads and develops the university’s innovation services, innovation activities and commercialisation processes. He also promotes and advances collaboration among the university’s entrepreneurial community. Tomi Erho has diverse experience at VTT Technical Research Centre, where he held the positions of e.g. principal scientist, team leader and business development manager. Erho is also CTO, co-founder and co-owner in a startup company.

Christoph Wiktor Schureck

Fraunhofer, Innovation Hub Central

Christoph studied law at the Justus Liebig University and works as a trainee lawyer at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main. He graduated from the Technical University of Dresden and the Jagiellonian University of Krakow with a Magister Legum (LL.M.) in Intellectual Property Law. Christoph is a longstanding legal advisor for license, trademark and software contracts and since 2019 is a Licensing Manager at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Christoph has an in-depth knowledge of the exploitation of intellectual property and in negotiation of global IP deals. He is a specialist in software utilisation and open source software, as well as identification and development of licensing models and negotiation tactics; design of exploitation-oriented IP strategies and new exploitation paths.

Karin Rehatschek

Montanuniversität Leoben, Innovation Hub East

Karin Rehatschek has experience in European and international projects, funding advice for European/international programs, project management.

Tony Ehrnström

Epiroc, Innovation Hub North

Tony has been working with patents and other types of IP since 2006 as in in-house patent counsel for several large Swedish industrial companies.  ESAB (welding equipment), Sandvik (machining tools), Getinge (medical equipment) and since 2013 Epiroc (mining equipment).

Donata Folesani

Aster, Innovation Hub South

Donata Folesani is Head of Access to Finance and Intellectual Property Unit in the Research and Innovation Division of ART-ER. The Unit carries out information and support activities and develops projects, both at regional and national and international level, concerning: start-ups and SMEs access to finance, investor readiness and investor relations, protection and management of knowledge and intellectual property in technology transfer and in science-industry collaboration. She is an expert evaluator for the European Commission and for regional and local institutions in terms of supporting innovation and innovative business creation. She is also member  of the European Intellectual Property Helpdesk Ambassadors team.

Merlijn Bazuine

TU Delft, Innovation Hub West

In Merlijn Bazuine’s scientific career, he identified the sequence of a human gene involved in cancer (mdm-4; 1996) and was one of the pioneers at the University of Michigan (USA) in identifying the role of innate immune system in the development of diabetes. The latter discovery resulted in a patent and a paper in the prestigious scientific journal Cell (2009). In 2010, he returned to the Netherlands and enrolled in evening-courses studying law at university. During the day, Merlijn worked as a subsidy-consultant for PNO, Deloitte and ultimately Shell. In this time, he gained extensive experience in drafting, applying and administering Dutch fiscal tax incentives for R&D (WBSO, Innovationbox) and national and European grants, funding and subsidies (CEF, FP7, H2020). In 2016, he graduated cum laude in law with a Master’s degree in Intellectual Property, ICT and Internet Law. Since 2017, Merlijn have been working full-time as an intellectual property manager at the TU Delft. Alongside his more general activities in patent law, Merlijn also serves as a specialist in the legal intellectual property aspects involving software.

Education Committee

Chair of the EIT RawMaterials Education Committee: Sibila Borojević Šoštarić, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb, Innovation Hub East

Kaisa Hansen, Head of Startup Centre, TalTech University, Innovation Hub Baltic Sea

Beate Brede, Head of Training Centre for Fibre Composite Technology, Fraunhofer IFAM, Innovation Hub Central

Åsa Kassman Rudolphi, Head of Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, Innovation Hub North

Franco Bonollo, Full Professor of Metallurgy at the Department of Management and Engineering, Padova University, Innovation Hub South

David Peck, Associate Professor, TU Delft, Innovation Hub West