On Tuesday 14. March, HVL and the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for education and research cooperation.
The inauguration ceremony, held in Jaffna, marked the kick-off of a five-year NORPART project within clean energy technology.
The project supports the exchange of staff and students at master and Ph.D level as well as the development of a master programme within clean energy technology at the University of Jaffna (UoJ). The project is funded by the Norwegian government and has a budget of 4,7 million NOK.
The main research topic in the NORPART project is a new generation of solar cell technologies. As the worlds energy demand is growing there is a need to find alternative and sustainable sources for energy.
The project coordinators, Prof. Dhayalan Velauthapillai from HVL and Professor P. Ravirajan from UoJ have been conducting research on the new generation of solar cell technologies based on new nanomaterials. These technologies will lead to low weight, flexible and cheap solar cell technologies in the future, for instance in paint form and thin films.
The research activity will include master level students, Ph.D students and fellow researchers from two Sri Lankan universities, one Indian university, and three Norwegian universities.