RDM EnergyLab: collaboration and innovation around hydrogen technology

Students hard at work at RDM EnergyLab (© Rotterdam Partners)

Innovation, collaboration, experimentation, entrepreneurship… Rotterdam is often described in these terms. RDM EnergyLab, located at RDM Rotterdam, is the place for innovation in the port. Here, students, teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs collaborate on new developments related to hydrogen. If the aforementioned characterizations apply anywhere, it is here.

RDM Rotterdam, part of the Rotterdam Makers District, is very busy on working days. It is a constant coming and going of students and innovative start-up and scale-up entrepreneurs who are working on sustainable solutions for the smart port of tomorrow. RDM EnergyLab is also located here, a place where education, research and entrepreneurship come together around hydrogen.

RDM Energylab is a training and test centre where the production, transport and application of hydrogen can be tested on a small scale. It is important that there are places for experimentation and development, so that the full potential of hydrogen technology can be explored and utilized. RDM Energylab offers a space where students can become acquainted with hydrogen technology and work together with teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs in a safe and controlled environment on innovative projects with applications in the port or, for example, the transport sector.

‘It is essentially about linking projects from companies to students. Companies bring in innovative projects, on which our students work and in which they come up with solutions for concrete issues. It works well both ways. We are working on applicable, concrete new developments, and companies are making contact with talents, the technicians of the future, whom they might otherwise find very difficult to find.’

Emile Jackson, Energy Transition Program Coordinator at Center of Expertise HRTech (a collaboration program of Rotterdam Academy and the Technology College Rotterdam) and coordinator of RDM Energylab on the success of RDM EnergyLab.

Emile Jackson oversees activities at RDM EnergyLab

Read the full RDM EnergyLab story here