Searching for smart specialisation in Greece

Georgios Stavropoulos’ research doesn’t sound like a typical candidate for EU structural funding. His NESTOR project proposes to collect data on neutrinos – ghostly particles zipping from space to our planet every second – from a telescope deep in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece.

Then again, the EU is purposely moving away from “typical” regional funding.

While regional funding in the past meant bankrolling infrastructure projects – “a lot of asphalt, a lot of concrete, a lot of roads,” as MEP Lambert van Nistelrooij told Science|Business earlier this year – support for innovation through “smart specialisation strategies” is the linchpin of the new EU regional plan for 2014-2020.

A smart specialisation strategy uses local know how – or “entrepreneurial discovery” in its own words – to identify and build on a region’s existing strengths.

The European Commission has made it clear that regions should have a broad view on innovation and leverage not only new technologies, but any innovation that enhances competitiveness.

Stavropoulos makes a strong case for the academic intrigue of NESTOR (Neutrino Extended Submarine Telescope with Oceanographic Research), saying, “We’ll get closer to opening a new window into seeing how our universe begun.” But can such a project be neatly slotted into a regional strategy that will post returns on investment?

Science tourism

The cash-strapped Greek government likes NESTOR but may not be able to afford it: hence the willingness to turn to EU structural funding. 

“From neutrinos, I don’t know if there will be a commercial opportunity in the near future,” admits Stavropoulos. “But Pylos – the coastal town that will host the telescope – is famous for tourists. We have an increased amount of visits from people wanting to see this project and hear what we are doing. In this sense, we are adding to the economic advantage of the area.”

The infrastructure around the telescope, in particular the high capacity fibres required to move data to and from the site, could be shared, bringing benefit to a host of fields. “The novel thing about our infrastructure is that it will support instruments from other sciences. The telescope we have built can host instruments from geologists who wish to constantly record seismic activity. So, we will be able to offer a unique opportunity for other sciences,” said Stavropoulos.

Then there’s the potential local gain in knowledge. “The know-how you develop from working on a project like this is really very, very advanced,” he says. “This expertise can be transferred to other fields of interest.”

Stavropoulos – like the premise of his project – is keeping an open mind: a co-financing option from Horizon 2020, the EU’s main research programme, is also something he will look at with his colleagues.

Secrets of space on the seabed

Neutrinos – coming from sources like the sun and exploding stars – carry a rich source of information about the distant universe. These imperceptible messengers are hard to pin down however. Their only visible contributions are fleeting pulses of light after they hit atoms in a particular way.

While the confusing dust and debris of space doesn’t lend conditions kindly to keen neutrino-spotters, pointing a telescope up from the seabed – on the other hand – might do the trick.

“Neutrinos are very rare and very hard to see, so we will use the sea water to filter the cosmic radiation,” said Stavropoulos. “We expect only a few neutrinos per year to leave traces inside our telescope’s detector. If we left our detector on the surface, neutrinos would be obscured by millions of rays crossing over each other: the trick is to place it in the water and filter out the biggest amount of particles and light,” he added.

Why did they choose Pylos as the base of their investigation? “You need a certain depth for all of this: some 3,500 metres,” said Stavropoulos. “Off the coast of Pylos, you have the deepest spot in the Mediterranean.”

The quest to learn from neutrinos is not a new one – in fact, they have been observed for many years, since at least the 1950s.

In the 1980s, a similar underwater effort was attempted in Hawaii, says Stavropoulos, but failed for technical reasons.

After that, funding dried up. NESTOR was the first to put a prototype in the sea and successfully take data. “Our biggest achievement so far is that we’ve brought about a revival in interest in neutrino telescopy,” said Stavropoulos.