35 success stories to reinvent society

At LIST, we strive to respond to global challenges and to build a society that is simultaneously more resilient, sustainable and digital. The Institute has published its 2021 annual report today, with many success stories: innovative research projects, unique infrastructures and testimonials from our partners.

A new world is emerging whose watchword will be resilience. This is what occupies Europe at present, and this is where LIST’s mission comes into its own. LIST brings together diverse and complementary skills in the fields of information and communication technologies, environmental technologies, biotechnologies, advanced materials and space resources. This unique collection of skills makes it possible to create the synergies that are essential for building a reinvented economy and society.

Therefore, in 2021 we continued to develop high-impact technologies whilst intensifying our 'sustainable by design' approach. In other words, by striving to minimise negative impact on the environment through the smart design of our products, services and technologies. It is in this vein that LIST formalised its LIST 2.0 strategy in the Multi-year Work Programme (MAP) 2022-2025, published in late 2021. This strategy reflects LIST's vision, mission and values, and takes the form of eight objectives and their indicators, enabling LIST to increase its economic, political, environmental, social, regional and academic impact.

Passion for impact

In terms of partnerships, in 2021, LIST continued its extensive collaboration with the manufacturer Goodyear in the fields of sustainable mobility and materials of the future. Furthermore, it has signed a partnership with CircuitFoil to work on the next generation of copper foil. Finally, the signing of partnerships with Air Liquide/CNES and Airbus Defence and Space will contribute to the R&D activities of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC), implemented as LIST's fourth department.

In line with its mission to transfer innovation, LIST has created the spin-off Dynaccurate, whose aim is the automated interoperability of data and which facilitates the maintenance of large-scale knowledge graphs.

From an institutional point of view, LIST has continued to put its expertise to good use in the fight against coronavirus, in particular through the implementation of the CORONASTEP project, aimed at detecting the presence of the virus in wastewater. LIST has consolidated this monitoring within the framework of a new project, CORONAVAR, aimed at detecting some ten variants of concern of the COVID-19 virus. In the aftermath of the flooding that struck Luxembourg and Europe in the summer of 2021, LIST provided maps based on spatial data showing the affected urban areas, both regionally and internationally. Essential support that once again demonstrates our societal contribution in response to the incidents and events the authorities must confront.

Key figures

Finally, scientific excellence still remains the cornerstone of LIST's ambitions, proven with 106 national competitive projects, 50 international competitive projects and 170 collaborative projects in progress in 2021, as well as 146 scientific publications produced in the top 10% in their category, and 28 successfully defended theses.

In this annual report, you will find evidence of our unwavering commitment to reinventing society and securing the destiny of future generations and our planet. Such results would not have been possible without the dedication of each and every LIST collaborator: coming from the four corners of the globe to LIST to push further the frontiers of research, they are the first ambassadors of this sustainable, digital and resilient society that we wish to build hand in hand with our partners.

Discover the digital version of the LIST 2021 annual report, including videos, podcasts and links to more information, or download the PDF version, in English and French.