Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH), Institute of Applied Biosciences

Country	Greece
E-mail	www.imet.gr

The Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) founded in 2000 is one of the leading research centres in Greece and listed among the TOP-20 E.U. research institutions with the highest participation in competitive research grants.
 
It is a legal entity governed by private law with non-profit status, supervised by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs.
 
CERTH has important scientific and technological achievements in many areas including: Energy, Environment, Industry, Mechatronics, Information & Communication, Transportation & Sustainable Mobility, Health, Agro-biotechnology, Smart farming, Safety & Security, as well as several cross-disciplinary scientific areas.
 
Today CERTH includes the following five institutes with indicated major fields of research:
- Chemical Process & Energy Resources Institute (CPERI): Sustainable & Clean Energy, Environmental Technologies, Chemical & Biochemical Processes, Advanced Functional Materials
- Information Technologies Institute (ITI)
- Informatics, Telematics and Telecommunication Technologies
- Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT): Land, Sea and Air Transportation as well as Sustainable Mobility services
- Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB): Agri-biotechnology, Health Translational Research, Informatics for big bio-data
- Institute for Research & Technology of Thessaly (IRETETH): Agrotechnology, Mechatronics, Biomedicine and Kinesiology
 
CERTH is essentially a self-supported Research Centre generating an average annual turnover of ~ € 25 Million coming from:
>30% from bilateral industrial research contracts
>60% from competitive research projects and
<10% as government institutional funding
 
More than 700 people work at CERTH with the majority being scientists.

CERTH has received numerous awards and distinctions such as the European Descartes Prize, the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant, Microsoft International Contest Prize, the Trading Agents Competition Award and many more and is listed among the Top-20 of the EU’s Research Centres with the highest participation in HORIZON 2020 competitive research grants.

CERTH has participated successfully in more than 1.200 competitive research projects  (with a total budget exceeding 450 M€ and involving more than 1.100 international partner organizations) financed by the European Union (EU), leading industries from USA, Japan and Europe and the Greek Government via the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT).

CERTH’s research results (more than 350 publications/year) have significant scientific impact (about 7.100 heterocitations/year)

Four spin off companies have been already launched through CERTH research activities.

CERTH is the first Greek research institution recognized by the European Union that respects the principles of the “Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers”.
 
The Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB) at the Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) aims to address the gap between research excellence and applications that meet end-user demands through close ties to interested stakeholders (SMEs, health sector, productive sector, social groups etc).
INAB has a leading position in the field of Agri-biotechnology aiming at understanding fundamental mechanisms underpinning a series of challenges mainly related to food safety and security, both global and local, especially concerning agri-genomics. Indeed, a major emphasis is given on genomics applications and molecular biotechnology for the production of food with improved quality; the development of new elite plant varieties, industrially relevant materials and genetically certified plant materials; and, finally, the establishment of microbial production systems of high added value products.
INAB is also conducting multidisciplinary Health Translational Research based on cutting-edge technologies with the main objectives of: dissecting cancer pathophysiology and identifying novel predictive biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets; understanding stem cell biology, especially of the hematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells; advancing gene and cell therapy approaches for difficult to cure hematological diseases, both congenital and acquired, with a special focus on thalassemia; improving prevention, diagnosis and management of infections by the human papilloma virus; and, promoting pharmacological research, especially regarding biossimilars and generics.
INAB is very active in the field of Informatics for Big Biodata. Its competences start from big data management, analytics and interpretation with data stemming from biomolecular to streaming data, to telemonitoring, medication, and social media data. E-Health systems based on medical devices and ICT are built aiming in producing third generation telemonitoring systems enabling disease management of chronic patients, multi-morbid patients, as well as preventive monitoring of healthy individuals. Finally, in-silico modeling of the human organism beyond the cellular level in the cardiovascular system as well as in the mental/immuno systems is a major focus of INAB.