Today, Eaton the global leader in power management technology and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of West Bohemia (UWB) in Pilsen entered into an agreement to accelerate innovation in energy technology at the Regional Innovation Centre for Electrical Engineering (RICE). This important agreement intends to strengthen the research and educational activities of both partners, especially in the fields of power electronics, motor controllers and intelligent industrial systems, with a focus on transportation and electricity generation applications.
The new, five year agreement between Eaton and the University of West Bohemia establishes the basis for long-term cooperation and makes the UWB one of Eaton’s leading university partners. It brings both parties new possibilities in the area of research, the education of students in undergraduate and postgraduate study programs, access to highly-trained, high-quality graduates, as well as the ongoing development of RICE’s technical equipment and infrastructure.
Eaton values the knowledge of the experts at the Regional Innovation Centre for Electrical Engineering (RICE). “The partnership between RICE and Eaton will help accelerate the transition to electric mobility. Leveraging RICE’s world-class power electronics expertise, not only will Eaton’s new eMobility business be able to create even more innovative vehicle power management platforms, but the company will also deepen its research into non-traditional applications such as solid state circuit breakers,” said Ramanath Ramakrishnan, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Eaton.
The Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Zdeněk Peroutka added, “Signing the agreement with Eaton is one of the important steps in achieving the long-term strategy of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The agreement is important because it sets out the long-term cooperation in both the area of research as well as in the education of our teams and students at all levels of study in the faculty. The resources and the facilities will enable us to strengthen the exceptional quality of Pilsen’s Electrical-engineering Faculty, offer our students new scholarship programs and participation in interesting scientific and academic projects, systematically invest in our study programs and develop and modernize the faculty’s technical equipment over the long term. This will help us to train high-quality graduates and I expect that it will also bring higher interest in study from applicants.”
Opened in 2016, RICE is a research center of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The center has successfully built upon the traditions of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Technology created in its laboratories has found successful application in transport technology, electricity generation, industry, printing electronics, sensors and smart textiles .
