On Wednesday 14 December, the University of Primorska had the honour to host Brent Hartley, U. S. Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia, who has visited the university together with the Embassy Aconomic Attaché H. Reisinger and the Economic and Commercial Specialist, Mirjana Rabič.

The main topic of the meeting, which was attended by the rector of the University of Primorska, prof. Dragan Marušič, University board members, US researchers at our University and the ones who are intensively cooperating with the United States, was the optimization of the current cooperation and the development of future ways of collaboration.

Particular attention was paid to research- and development innovation linkages between the academic institutions and businesses enterprises on both sides of the Atlantic. As good example of this kind of cooperation, Michael Burnard has presented the project Renewable Materials and Healthy Environments Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence (InnoRenew CoE). In its Living Laboratory, 62 stakeholders representing industry, consumers, and researchers (two of them are from the United States) are gathered to collaboratively explore, design and validate themes, opportunities, and risks for new innovative renewable material based products, services and systems.