Work Plan

The underlying principle of the work plan is to keep the organizational structure as simple as possible, and to prevent the overlapping of responsibilities and the duplication of activities among work packages.

For these reasons activities are grouped in five work packages.

The first objective, to acquire top researchers for the CDSE is placed in WP2 “Hiring the excellent researchers”. Objective 2 (to enhance the experimental RBI role in the existing large international collaborative projects and to enable involvement in the new ones) and objective 3 (to enhance capabilities and capacities of RBI for multi- and inter-disciplinary applications and technology transfer related to the development, testing and construction of research instrumentation) have many common points. Their realization will be achieved through the CDSE operation. Realization of both objectives depends on the expertise of the hired staff. Milestones for implementation are connected with implementation results of the other proposed RBI major projects specified in previous chapters, including the ones for ESIF funding.

Therefore, related activities for realization of these two objectives are grouped in the same work package “Implementation of the Centre for Detectors, Sensors and Electronics” (W3). Realization of Objective 4 (to contribute to the realization of the Croatian smart specialisation strategies, as well as take a leading role in institutional changes to implement ERA priorities) besides activities planned within WP2 and WP3, requires two separate sets of activities which will be realized through two work packages. The first set of activities is on the institutional level and it will be realized by WP4 “Implementation of the structural changes at RBI” and the second on the global level and these activities make part of the WP5 “Project dissemination, communication and networking”. The management activities aiming to ensure smooth project operation are grouped in WP1.

Through the employment of outstanding researchers, ERA Chair, and new excellent researchers, the WP2 will address a serious weaknesses of the RBI, namely lack of world class researchers with a very strong experience in experimental work in cutting edge detector, sensor and electronics technology.  

Due to the requirements of the ERA Chair program, a RBI weakness - the still limited equipment for the novel state of the art research instrumentation development and testing - will be addressed in this project in a limited way. Less than 10% of the project funding will be used to acquire specialized equipment chosen by hired experts to enable optimized exploitation of their expertise immediately after their employment. This equipment funding restriction will not hinder the implementation of the CDSE as RBI possesses a critical amount of necessary equipment. Further, the more advanced equipment will be acquired via the RBI ESIF projects O-ZIP and the Centre for Advanced Technologies, by funding for the national Centre of Excellence and from existing research grants of the Centre users.

The remaining weaknesses will be addressed by WP3, aiming to improve the  RBI environment for excellence in research and innovations, and WP4 which includes additional measures to attract new PhD students, excellent foreign researchers and excellent Croatians working abroad, to improve RBI visibility at national and international level, and foster RBI contribution to the national economy.

The proposed work plan thus addresses all the main weaknesses of the experimental nuclear, particle, and astroparticle groups, and RBI in general, and exploits their strengths to take advantage of the opportunities to improve the quality of the research and innovations, particularly regarding detectors, sensors, and electronics. As the proposed project includes only one participating institution and the staffs involved in its realization is in everyday contact, implementation of the project is quite straightforward.