About PICLU
PICLU, short for Process Industry Centre at Lund University, is a joint venture by the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Automatic Control at the Faculty of Engineering (LTH) at Lund University.
The mission of the Centre is to strengthen a leading research environment in process optimization and control through strong interaction between industry and academy, in order to facilitate innovation and competitiveness in the process industry at large. At the heart of PICLU lies a close collaboration with national and international companies, actors within the process industry and their suppliers. The consortium behind PICLU has since the foundation in 2008 published over 110 scientific papers and reports, graduated 12 PhD and over 50 MSc theses. The process industry, both national and international, has supported the research with over 64 MSEK, whereof 15 MSEK in cash contributions.
PICLU’s philosophy:
- Close collaboration with industry to ensure relevant industrial problems, real multi-disciplinary applications and to allocate in-kind resources;
- Interesting scientific problem formulation that can be analyzed and generalized for use outside the specific application.
Foundation and Phases
Lund University holds a long tradition of research activities in process industry applications in the area of design, control and operation. A strong collaboration between the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Automatic Control began in 1999, when the joint research centre CPDC (Chemical Process Design and Control) was founded, on the initiative from the Swedish Foundation of Strategic Research. After a brief period under the name of CEPROC (Centre for Process Optimization and Control) in 2007, PICLU was formally founded in 2008. The foundation process received vital funding from the Swedish Foundation of Strategic Research.
Phase 1 (2008 – 2011) and Phase 2 (2011 – 2014) both received core funding from the Swedish Foundation of Strategic Research. Phase 1 evolved around five projects. In Phase 2, emphasis was put on further studies within the same five projects. For more information about past PICLU projects, please see Scientific Results. The complete budget for the period was 75 Mkr, where 30 Mkr from SSF and 12 Mkr from cash industry, the rest in in-kind.
Phase 3 (2014 - 2017) marked a new era in PICLU’s work. Phase 3 spans the period 2014 – 2017 and is moving beyond the previously fixed five-project setting. The Centre acts as a network for different types of projects, spanning various lengths, with a core connection to the PICLU research area. PICLU is a member of PiiA mangement group and VINNOVA is a central funding partner. The complete budget for the period was 65 Mkr, where 32 Mkr from Vinnova and 2 Mkr from cash industry, the rest in in-kind.
Phase 4 spans the period 2017 – 2020 and is organised as a network of projects within the PICLU area. The ambition is to keep up the high productivite.