The rapid progress of technology towards automation and digitalization is very likely to transform the nature of the oil and gas (O&G) industry's work and workforce with an increased competition for talent. Digital literacy skills are becoming increasingly important, including analytic capabilities, development of new software and intelligent hardware, and the ability to effectively use such new tools.
Successful digitalization efforts will likely be based on open-source software solutions since these are naturally easy to adapt to new challenges, allow for easier cross-institution and cross-company collaboration and accelerate technology and innovation transfer from research institutions to industry partners. With the proposed project INSPIRE, the partners will establish long-term active partnership between institutions in Norway, Germany, and France. INSPIRE is built on existing research collaborations between partners from Universities in Heidelberg and Stuttgart, Université Cote d'Azur and the French Geological Survey (BRGM).
The main focus for the proposed project INSPIRE is to initiate and expand collaboration on research and education (R&E) within open-source simulation software between the involved universities and institutes and further to integrate relevant industry into the different university collaborations. Partners of INSPIRE are internationally well recognized experts in fields such as CO2 sequestration, geothermal energy and enhanced oil recovery. With the increased exchange among R&E institutions as well as industry partners through R&E based on open-source software INSPIRE will ultimately foster innovation in these areas.
