NRC inks deal with Germany's Helmholtz

The National Research Council (NRC) has renewed its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Germany's Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres with an explicit focus on renewable energy. The three-year agreement will see $8.4 million in cash and in-kind devoted to funding a select number of collaborative research projects in the areas of fuel cells, bio-fuels and hydrogen. The previous 2001 MOU between the two organizations was non-targeted and saw the funding and implementation of 11 research projects. Helmholtz is the German counterpart the NRC, performing a mix of basic and applied research focused on industrial needs It is more than six times larger than the NRC, with nearly 26,000 employees (including 8,000 scientists) and an annual budget of approximately $2.5 billion. The NRC also has similar MOUs with France, Spain and Taiwan.