Researchers

Georg Macher (TUG)

Georg Macher
Senior Researcher
Georg Macher
TUG

Seconded from the Graz University of Technology (TUG) to Merinova (Vaasa) and Lorit Consultancy

1 month, Autumn 2019, 1 month, Winter 2019-2020 & 0.5 month Winter 2022
I’m Senior Scientist at Graz University of Technology. At my Institute I’m coordinating the Industrial Informatics research group, one of the research groups, which is geared to tightly collaborate with industry on specific projects. Our research activities focus on safety and cyber-security of embedded systems in industrial context (currently automotive and water power plant).
I’m also active as industry consultant, coach, and trainer, with a special focus on the automotive domain, and involved in some EU funded and national funded project. I’m also very proud to be involved in an EU Blue Print project (DRIVES) for the definition of future job role training in the automotive domain for 2030.
The OpenInnoTrain project was a completely new exciting opportunity for our team. In the research group (I am working with highly committed young experts), we live the motto of challenging the status quo and continuous improvement. To be a role model (team expectations for their coordinator) I stayed as first secondee of TU Graz a secondment at Merinova (Finland) and a second secondment at Lorit (Scotland). In 2022, I joined Merinova again for a split secondment. Only via these secondments I was offered the chance to get in touch with innovators and novel approaches to sustainable energy systems in the context of the energy cluster in Vaasa.
My second secondment offered me the opportunity to get introduced in the topics of medical device safety. Together with Lorit and the EuroSPI conference, which was held 2019 in Edinburgh, I had the chance to exchange with researcher and cross-fertilize knowhow of the medical device security domain with approaches from the power plant and automotive domain.
Also in terms of improving my social and cross-domain acumen, the secondment increased my knowledge and opened new ways of thinking on decentralized technologies and multi-disciplinary research topics. Hence, the project already broaden my horizon and I appreciate the opportunity to continue and network with the individuals of non-similar professional aspirations to further extend my view.

Impact of OpenInnoTrain on my career and organisation

How has the secondment created new perspectives for applying your knowledge in practical situations?

Through this secondment, I was offered the chance to get in touch with innovators and novel approaches to sustainable energy systems in the context of the energy cluster in Vaasa. The concepts discussed during some of the workshops have broadened my view in terms of circular economy and sustainable/renewable business models, which I would have hardly experienced in the context of the traditional company frameworks I usually cooperate with.

My secondment at Lorit gave me the chance to experience very related topics of safety in the context of the medical domain and provided several personal lessons learned, which I transfer to my research group. Since being positioned as an interlink between my institute and the industry to tighten cooperation and exchange, the OIT project provides me with additional contacts and success stories to assure my position. Further, the option to get secondees from industry at the institute will additionally ensure relevance and actuality of research activities in the individual industry contexts.

My second stay in Vaasa gave me the opportunity to interact with researchers in the area of sustainable business development. The secondments in Vaasa and Edinburgh contributed significantly to the development of a new course offering for the TUG LifeLongLearning programme on Digital Business Innovation Basics.

How has the secondment created new career perspectives for you?

All secondments provided enormous chances for networking at events that took place during my stay on side. Furthermore, I also got the opportunity to collaborate with secondees from the University of Vaasa for industrial/scientific paper with them and the hosting organisations in their respective domain. Papers that will be/are submitted to management conferences would not be supported or in the focus of my publication agenda without the OIT project. Networking events and workshops enabled a transfer of best practices from Energy domain trainings (OIT secondment in Vaasa) to a research project for training in the automotive domain (EU Blueprint Project DRIVES).

Having been exposed to work with engineers from other domains and also research fellows from the University of Vaasa management school have broadened my view on the exploitation of technology and the perspective of disruptive business model opportunities. The cooperation with Rumy broadened my intercultural and interdomain experience and taught me life experiences I would never like to miss..

How has the secondment given you global mobility opportunities?

Thanks to the secondment in Edinburgh, I could establish connections with Scottish research fellows in the medical domain. Due to the contact with Merinova Digitalisation Academy, I got in touch with industry experts from the Vaasa region, which would hardly have been in the focus of research of Graz University of Technology.

With the research conducted with Rumy Narayan and Lorit, we could work on societal challenges like safety, security, and privacy needs for medical data. In this context, we worked on Blockchain technology to facilitate the exchange of information while ensuring the privacy needs of patients.

How has the secondment given your organisation opportunities?

A still on-going process which requires some more additional exchange, which is currently in discussion with industry and research colleagues from the Zagreb region as well as continuing  with the Vaasa region.

Due to the promotion and marketing of the OIT project, we got in touch with institutes of TU Graz with entirely different research focus but could find communalities and overlaps in the context of Food technologies and Industry 4.0, which we are currently working to exploit and expedite.

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