In order to evaluate the successful development of the PI-SCALE project and its final results, a review meeting together with representatives of the European Commission took place in Eindhoven, the Netherlands in September 2019.

Within the framework of the PI-SCALE project funded by the European Union under Horizon 2020 programme, the leading European research institutes Holst Centre/TNO, Fraunhofer FEP, VTT, and CPI together with industrial partners Audi, REHAU, Pilkington and EDOL and supported by AMIRES were able to set up the pilot line service for flexible organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) LYTEUS.

LYTEUS is able to supply industrial companies with customized flexible OLED lighting modules and supports the development of new innovative products. The activities of the LYTEUS pilot line continues after the end of the project under the lead of the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP.

In order to promote PI-SCALE results and to present the services offered by LYTEUS, the consortium invites potential industrial customers to a workshop on November 7, 2019, in Dresden, Germany. During this workshop interested parties can now experience the offer of the LYTEUS pilot line service on site at Fraunhofer FEP and discuss it with the partners. The industrial partners of PI-SCALE will also present their impressive applications and the research partners will inform you in detail about the range of services of LYTEUS. Experts will be then available to discuss ideas.

More information is available at www.pi-scale.eu and www.lyteus.com.

About 106 organizations are involved in the field of photovoltaics within already funded Horizon 2020 projects. 43 of these are private companies for profit such as Acciona Construccion Sa, Wirtschaft Und Infrastruktur Gmbh & Co Planungs Kg, and Onyx Solar Energy S.L. The key players involved in a majority of the projects include CEA, Tecnalia and Fraunhofer.

Research in this area is focused on technologies such as multi-junction cells based on III-V semiconductors that use nanowires and monolithic multi-junction (MJ) solar cells. Other advancement in this field is the use of materials such as multi-functionalised silica nano-particles that allow for self-cleaning abilities as well as solid-state perovskite and organic molecules.

The advancements in photovoltaics are aimed at reducing GHG emissions while reducing material needs by making the cells lighter with higher efficiencies.

To obtain more insights on Horizon 2020 photovoltaic projects, subscribe to AMIplexus (http://amiplexus.eu/).

The following is the AMIplexus network of Photovoltaics projects. To interact with the network, please use the click, drag and scroll functions.

TRIBUTE final conference took place at Espace Encan in La Rochelle, France on 20th September 2017. During the event, the project was revealed to the public and the results were made well known to the audience. This was a very important action for the recognition of the project to the public and for giving the importance of project’s targets regarding the building energy performance problematic through the introduction of improved buildings’ simulation connected with continuous building monitoring. The representatives from the whole project’s consortium as well as external expert keynote speakers were giving presentation and gladly answering all the questions given from the public.

The conference attracted a wide range of stakeholders from the whole value chain, such as representatives from the industrial sector and the public authorities, engineers from different field as well as students and private investors. Additionally, press conference with the key persons form the project was organized for the local and national media.  A day after the final conference, the TRIBUTE team also met with its Project Technical Advisor at its final review to conclude the work done during last 4 year.

Elena Turco (AMIRES) presented the concept of pilot lines of the H2020 projects PI-SCALE and InSCOPE and to introduce the objectives of the H2020 SmartEEs project at the Conference on Polymers and Organic Materials for Electronics and Photonics: Science for Applications (81th PMM). The conference brought together a number of highly distinguished interdisciplinary scientists working in the field of molecular and polymeric materials. The objectives were to achieve international cooperation of researchers both from academia and industry and to stimulate the research growth in the field of organic materials for electronics and photonics.

During the conference, several presentations were focused on innovative materials with enhanced electrical, photoelectrical and optical properties. The applications presented during the afternoon session on Tuesday 12 September included smart windows, conductive textiles, nanosilver paints, oil sensors, smart labels and healthcare monitoring devices.

During the presentation “Mass production and applications in Organic Flexible Electronics: pilot lines and use cases” it was highlighted how the concept of pilot lines can be applicable in the materials development field, too. The projects PI-SCALE, InSCOPE and SmartEEs were presented as inspiration for those companies willing to access to services, available at European level, for the development of innovative products and demonstrators.

Click HERE for the presentation.

Around 1000 stakeholders discussed the future of European Industry at the Industrial Innovation Info Days, held on 3 – 4 October, in Brussels, Belgium. During the event, plenary sessions with great political impact on the industrial environment and key notes by high level speakers were organized. AMIRES was also following different parallel session in which the topics in the next H2020 NMBP work programme were presented. Delegates had also the opportunity to present proposal ideas.

Discussions also occurred on the 9^th Framework Programme preparation including a stronger involvement of SMEs and the importance of social impact and ethics aspects in disruptive innovation. In the parallel session focused on the Testbed concepts the following general recommendations were given:

1. to be focused on the scale up process;
2. the Pilot Lines should be in different physical or virtual locations but a Single Entry Point (SEP);
3. the sustainability analysis and the business study will avoid duplication with existing hubs;
4. coordination and networking with other similar test beds as well as with other innovation eco-systems in the EU is quite important;
5. half of the European Pilot Lines are owned by SMEs. These SME should take part of Open Innovation Test Beds and offer services through them.

Presentations from the event can be accessed HERE.

SmartEEs is one of the five EU projects funded under the H2020 Smart Anything Everywhere Initiative. SmartEEs will develop a Digital Innovation Hub dedicated to Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE), an organized European innovation network that will provide an access to both competencies and business support for innovation adoption.

The SmartEEs kick-off meeting was held on 14  – 15 September, in Grenoble, at CEA facilities. The project brings together 7 competence centres and 3 partners dealing with business support and networking. During the meeting, several product concepts were presented. These will be included in the Market Place platform where Innovative Companies will be inspired by different potential applications for flexible electronics products. Three workshops were also organized during the meeting to decide on the contents of the Market Place (presenting the SmartEEs services accessible through a One-Stop-Shop); the evaluation and selection process for the proposals (Application Experiments) for innovative companies was discussed and the target groups and related Dissemination strategies were also defined.

20 Application Experiments will be conducted to explore the technology transfer into business, organization of cooperation, access to finance, services to be provided and act as showcases to raise awareness and activate potential users. The first SmartEEs call for proposals (Application Experiment) will be published in SmartEEs website in November 2017. More information will come soon!

As of January 2018, the SME Instrument and Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) will become a part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, which aims to target radically new, breakthrough products, services, processes or business models that open up new markets. This transition is expected to bring about also some changes in the SME Instrument with an aim to expand the reach of its benefits to the European innovation ecosystem.

The SME Instrument’s redesign is planned to improve both its accessibility and the excellence of its selection process. Changes include:

• Full bottom-up selection approach – the removal of pre-defined topics as foreseen in previous Work Programmes will allow entrepreneurs from all sectors of the economy to apply with their market-creating innovations.
• Overhaul of the submission forms – the structure and content of these forms have been adapted in order to simplify the submission process for these entrepreneurs and adopt a business-oriented language that is more adapted to their reality.
• Pool of expert-evaluators – the number of expert-evaluators in the pool with an investor profile has been significantly increased in order to better consider market and investment related elements in the evaluation.
• Face-to-face interviews with selected Phase 2 applicants – the introduction of this additional step after the remote evaluation will give expert-evaluators a better grasp of the proposals and make sure that only the best and most disruptive innovation ideas pass the cut.

Fast Track to Innovation will exit the pilot phase and also become part of the European Innovation Counicl pilot. The features of FTI will stay the same as in its pilot phase.

Click HERE for draft Work Programme 2018 – 2020, draft applicant guide, draft SME proposal templates and draft pitch deck template.

Since the beginning of October, the European Commission has been publishing draft Horizon 2020 Work Programmes for years 2018 – 2020. Even though the official adoption and publication is foreseen for the end of October 2017, the draft work programme parts are made public before the official adoption of the Work Programme 2018-2020 in order to allow a timely preparation of project proposals. Click HERE to find out more.

On 6 October 2017, the tenth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled  „BIOPRINTING – Engineering Complex Bioarchitectures To Biomimic Nature: A Step Closer To The Development Of Artificial Organs“ was given by Marc Thurner, CEO and founder of regenHU Ltd. Active in the advancement of biofabrication for over 15 years he is a leading contributor to the 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering scene.

regenHU — a three dimensional biotechnology company, exploiting the potential of 3D bioprinting & cell based therapies — is a creative innovator in the development of biomedical products for regenerative medicine & drug discovery. Based in Fribourg, Switzerland, regenHU is a pioneer and global leader in its field, converging digital manufacturing (3D printing), biomaterials and biotechnology to create transformational innovations in Healthcare

In the webinar, regenHU’s cutting edge biofabrication process, which creates infinite possibilities in the manufacture of artificial tissues and organs, was presented. By engineering Macro & Nano architectures in a single process unit, regenHU has opened the door to a whole new world of possibilities allowing us to mimic biological systems identical to those found in nature. Click  HERE for the webinar recording.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

On Thursday, 21 September 2017, the ninth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled  „Horizon 2020 Funding Opportunities for Regenerative Medicine“ was given by Dr. Rudolf Fryček, the Founder and CEO of AMIRES and representing Vice-Chair of ETPN RegMed WG. Click HERE for a bio.

In his presentation, Dr. Fyček provided an overview of opportunities for funding of regenerative medicine projects from the upcoming Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018 – 2020, mentioned some of already funded projects, their technologies and key movers.  The presentation used searches from AMIplexus, a cooperation visualization and search tool for projects funded by Horizon 2020 – a European Union’s research and innovation framework programme. Click HERE for more about AMIplexus. Click HERE for the presentation and HERE for the webinar recording.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

Alpes Lasers is a Swiss engineering company pioneering advanced light sources, especially Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) used in various applications such as gas detection.  The cascade laser is a semiconductor laser. It has the property of emitting in the wavelength range of the mid- and far- infrared. It can thus emit between 4 and 15 microns with very high reliability. It is impossible to arrive at these levels by standard laser diodes and it is very inefficient with conventional lasers that operate at cryogenic temperature.

Due to very specific needs of customers, Alpes Lasers has very few recurring sales, as each case of detection requires a special laser. In the early years Alpes Lasers was able to sell developments, however, it is no loner possible. It is the R & D part of the company that allows Alpes Lasers to be extremely agile to meet the many needs. The public funds allowed Alpes Lasers to finance development. That is why the company reached out to platinn Swiss innovation platform for coaching.

Under the supervision of Dr. Rudolf Fryček, the coaching was done on two levels: (1) communication to partners of potential projects, which brought the company to the Horizon 2020 project WaterSpy, (2) assisting to writing of EUROSTARS project proposals. According to Dr. Fryček, “Alpes Lasers has an indisputable capacity to innovate and to personalize its offer. There is an opportunity to address promising segments to move towards the industrialization stage of the company. European projects can help Alpes Lasers by sharing the risk in terms of technologies, markets or partners. New market opportunities for QCLs are emerging. In the era of the Internet of things, one can expect the growing interest towards chemical and biochemical sensors for which the technology controlled by Alpes Lasers could prove to be decisive.”

Click HERE for the full interview in French.

The integrated microfluidics for the ULTRAPLACAD plasmonic cartridge is manufactured with a Roll-to Roll (R2R) process at VTT. In the video, you’ll see the different steps for mass-production: laser processing, lamination, dispersion of biomolecules and final assembly. This Roll-to-Roll manufacturing process will allow to develop in ULTRAPLACAD a plasmonic device for early, ultrasensitive detection of cancer.

On Thursday, 31 August 2017, the eighth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled  „Panbio-electronics“ was given by Prof. Daniel Simon, the Head of the Organic Bioelectronics group of the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at the Linköping University (click HERE). Click HERE for a bio.

In his presentation, prof. Simon shared achievements of his group’s research on organic electronics and their animal and mammalian applications, particularly relating to neuroscience.  Moreover, it has been recently shown that organic electronics can also be applied to augment plant systems, bringing decades of anthropocentric R&D to the plant kingdom. Click HERE for the presentation and HERE for the webinar recording.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

In view of the upcoming Horizon 2020 calls for 2018, Mendel University’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in Brno, Czech Republic (click HERE), its Laboratory of cancer biology and nanomedicine, presents the following two project ideas:

• Nanobiotechnologies based on nanoparticles supported by protein cages with catalytic and enzyme-mimetic activity (click HERE for details)
• Engineered protein cages based on apoferritins for active drug delivery and environmental-responsive intracellular disassociation and release of anticancer drugs (click HERE details)

The presented ideas fall into the scope of the following H2020 calls for 2018:

SC1-BHC-09-2018      Innovation platforms for advanced therapies of the future
BIOTEC-04-2018        New biotechnologies for environmental remediation

For details or questions, please contact Dr. Dagmar Hegerova at dagmar.chudobova@centrum.cz or +420 728 048 137.

The 2017 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) has been published. EIS provides a comparative analysis of innovation performance in EU countries, other European countries, and regional neighbours. It assesses relative strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems and helps countries identify areas they need to address. The 2017 report presents a refined analytical framework. Rankings are therefore not directly comparable with previous editions, but time series using the new analytical framework allow performance to be tracked over time.

According to the report, the innovation performance of the European countries continues to increase. The reasons are:

• human resources
• innovation-friendly environment
• own-resource investments
• attractive research systems

Sweden remains the EU innovation leader, followed by Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK, and Germany. Lithuania, Malta, the UK, the Netherlands, and Austria are the fastest growing innovators. In a global comparison, the EU is catching up with Canada and the US, but South Korea and Japan are pulling ahead. China shows the fastest progress among international competitors.  Click HERE to find out details.

InnoEnergy, Europe’s sustainable energy innovation engine, is making its Investment Round, for supporting and launching revolutionary clean energy innovations, open year-round to offer flexibility to businesses to shorten the journey from lab to launch. During 2017, the Investment Round has already supported seven new projects in the fields of renewables, smart and efficient buildings and energy efficiency – linked to €13.5 million in funding. Since the launch of its Investment Round in 2011, InnoEnergy has supported more than 90 projects with €170.5 million funding, resulting in €3 billion of forecasted sales. This has contributed to 77 patents and 323 project partners working on projects spanning eight technology areas across Europe.

The Investment Round is open to proven European technology concepts that will help to change the future of the energy industry. By offering funding and connecting successful applicants with InnoEnergy’s network of industry experts, the initiative helps address challenges faced when commercialising technology to accelerate innovation.

To receive funding in 2017, your application needs to be submitted before 23 October 2017. Click HERE for more.

Funding Application Criteria:

• Your aim should be to develop an innovative product or service which could be ready to go to market within less than five years.
• You have successfully carried out a proof of concept (pilot or type test validation), corresponding to a Technology Readiness Level greater or equal to five (TRL >= 5)
• You must be part of a consortium of at least three, but no more than seven, European partners from both the research and industry sectors (InnoEnergy can provide a ‘matchmaking service’ to help you find suitable consortia members if required – find out more here.)
• The consortium needs to be made up of partners from at least two different countries and at least one of the companies commercialising the product or service must be involved in the project from the beginning.

In the coming months, the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) plans to enlarge the business acceleration services available for the companies funded under the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument. The goal is to support the SMEs on their growth path with networking, learning opportunities and facilitating access to business partners and investors.  On top of the already available Overseas Trade Fair Programme and Business innovation coaching, SMEs funded from the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument will now get an access to:

• Matchmaking events to meet investors and business partners
• Privileged access to finance and investors
• Peer to peer academy

The business acceleration services are offered under “Phase 3” of the SME Instrument. They are designed exclusively for companies funded under the SME Instrument Phase 1 and/or Phase 2 and are accessible during and after the grant duration. There is no participation limit to different events as long as the service is relevant for the company’s needs.

Are you interested in finding out more about the options for you? Click HERE for details.

A report on a new vision for EU research and innovation titled “LAB – FAB – APP: Investing in the European future” was prepared by an independent high level group of leading experts chaired by Pascal Lamy, President Emeritus of the Jacques Delors Institute. The report highlights that in the last twenty years, two thirds of economic growth in industrialised countries is attributed to research and innovation. Its recommendations focus on maximising the impact of EU investments in research and innovation in order to increase prosperity and solve our biggest societal challenges. Click HERE for the report.

The Group proposes eleven recommendations:

1. Prioritise research and innovation in EU and national budgets, including a doubling of the budget of the post-2020 EU research and innovation programme
2. Build a true EU innovation policy that creates future markets
3. Educate for the future and invest in people who will make the change
4. Design the EU R&I programme for greater impact
5. Adopt a mission-oriented, impact-focused approach to address global challenges
6. Rationalise the EU funding landscape and achieve synergy with structural funds
7. Simplify further, privilege impact over process
8. Mobilise and involve citizens
9. Better align EU and national R&I investment
10. Make international R&I cooperation a trademark of EU research and innovation
11. Capture and better communicate impact

The High Level Group on maximising the impact of EU Research and Innovation Programmes brings together 12 leading personalities from across Europe with a wide range of expertise. The members hold key posts in universities or research organisations, are leaders of industrial giants and dynamic SMEs, serve in high-level policy positions in national or international organisations, and play important roles in civil society organisations.

A new Partner Search feature has been added to the Participant Portal of the European Commission, which allows the participants to search for potential partners for project proposals. The Partner Search can be accessed in the Participant Portal, under How to Participate, Partner Search section on the left side of the screen. Details on this tool can be found HERE (registration is needed in order to access the information).

ISFOE is the biggest scientific & technology event in Flexible Organic & Printed Electronics (OEs). This year researchers, scientists, engineers, business managers, and policy makers from 59 countries participated to the event from 3 to 6 July in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Innovative experimental and commercial materials including special polymers and metallic nanomaterials for the development of organic electronics were presented during the first day. Industries and research centres were describing different methods for the mass production of OEs including printing technologies, R2R processes, laser technologies, in-line quality control, etc. AMIRES presented the concept of the pilot lines for flexible electronics of the two EU projects PI-SCALE and InSCOPE during the workshop Manufacturing and laser technologies. Click HERE for the presentation.

A special workshop was dedicated to Graphene and another workshop on 5 July was focused on Smart Textile and Wearables with the presentation of potential applications and demonstrators. Dr. Dionysios Manessis, coordinator of  the MEDILIGHT project that develops a smart device for chronic wound healing, presented the last project achievements and opportunities for the exploitation of the results. During the Biosensors workshop, research results for RNA, DNA and biomarkers detection were presented including the role of functionalized gold nanoparticles developed within ULTRAPLACAD project by the group of Prof. Giuseppe Spoto.

On 6 July, the Greek vice-minister for Environment, Energy and Climate change Dr. Socrates Famellos joined the workshop Renewable Energy and Storage, highlighting the importance of renewable energy sources and reuse of materials. Materials and technologies for low-carbon energy and for energy storage were presented by CEA and LEITAT.

On Thursday, 29 June 2017, the seventh from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled  “Selenium nanoparticles and their utilization in scaffolds” was given by Prof. Vojtěch Adam, the Head of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Vice-Rector for Science and Development at Mendel University in Brno. Click HERE for a bio and HERE for information about Mendel University’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

In his presentation, prof. Adam outlined the possibilities for utilization of selenium nanoparticles and shared some latest research achievements on selenium nanoparticles and their utilization in scaffolds. Of a particular interest was SelenBact, a skin healing gel for veterinary use, which the Mendel University developed in partnership with MedicProgress and which is today already on the market. Click HERE for the presentation and HERE for the webinar recording. For any questions of inquiries please contact Prof. Adam at vojtech.adam@mendelu.cz.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

The EuroNanoForum 2017 Conference (ENF2017) took place last week in Valletta, Malta under the auspices of the Maltese Presidency of the European Union. During the event, over 600 delegates (scientists, industry, policy makers from the nanotech community) from all over the world gathered to discuss and outline how nanotechnologies and advanced materials can revitalize manufacturing in Europe.  The following are some key takeaways from the sessions and the exhibition:

AMIplexus, Horizon 2020 cooperation visualization tool for better innovation-focused decisions for everybody who needs to get complex picture of already funded Horizon 2020 EU projects, their pipeline technologies and key movers, was introduced as a cloud-based application by AMIRES.  AMIplexus provides a fundamental overview of any type of technology of the application field, including key performers and their relations. During the event, the greatest interest in the tool came from:

• Private companies, which could search already funded technologies, look up what their competitors already do and find experienced scientific partners for their project ideas
• Universities and research organizations, which could use the tool to find partners among private companies with an experience in Horizon 2020 projects, see if their project idea has already been funded or find already funded “sister” projects for clustering
• Support associations and contact points, which could help their clients to connect with the top performers and efficiently enter the word of Horizon 2020

AMIplexus received, among others, appreciation not only from the industrial and scientific communities, but also from the Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Schembri of the Parliament of Malta.  The tool is now available online on a subscription basis (click HERE for more info and the pricing plans).

During the ENF2017 event, services of two pilot lines in the areas of lighting and hybrid printed electronics were presented. Namely,

• InSCOPE pilot line project, which aims to create impact by offering a pilot line service that advances accuracy and reliability of hybrid printed electronics. The pilot line is modular, ensuring a comprehensive toolbox of printing, assembly, production integration and process validation distributed over the InSCOPE partners. It enables users to replace PCB (printed circuit boards) with printed circuits on foil. Printed electronics replace the rigid conventional circuit boards by conformable foils. This way electronics can be transferred into 3D shaped products and at the same time be manufactured on a large scale, and ultimately on a roll-to-roll basis. Click HERE for more
• PI-SCALE pilot line project for the production of customized flexible OLEDs. The pilot line includes all the steps required to create advanced flexible OLED product prototypes: specialist high performance moisture barrier and electrode films, sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll flexible OLED fabrication, flexible device encapsulation, and lamination, bonding and system-level hybrid integration of thin film flexible electronics. Click HERE for details

The Pilot lines are serviced by top European RTD’s with leading technological positions and give a great chance for SMEs to enter the market by lowering the threshold for experimentation with envisioned innovative product concepts.

In the session on “Nano-enabled healthcare, nano-medicine and medical technologies“, new regulatory frame for medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics was discussed. The new regulations 2017/745 and 2017/746, which introduce among others a new compulsory certification system, were adopted on 5 April. The new rules will only apply after a transitional period. Namely, 3 years after entry into force for the Regulation on medical devices (spring 2020) and 5 years after entry into force (spring 2022) for the Regulation on in-vitro diagnostic medical devices (click HERE for more). In connection to the new regulation deployment, the European Commission plans to launch Open Innovation Hubs in which industries will have an opportunity to develop and test medical technologies in line with the new regulation. The first call is expected to be published in October 2017. Moreover, in the session, information about a cellulose-based hydrogel as a promising technology for 3D cell culturing and wound healing by UPM Biochemicals was provided (click HERE). Last, launch of ESTHER, a new association which aims to promote innovative European Health Technology Industry, particularly support SMEs from R&D&I to market access, was announced.  ESTHER is expected to commence in January 2018 (click HERE for more).

In the session on “Nanotechnologies for industrial success” ,the following were mentioned as some of the market shaping points:

• IIOT/Smart Factory starts to reshape the world-wide manufacturing
• Lesson learnt from previous 3 industrial revolutions is that those who do not drive and adapt disappear
• Algorithms will go across company boundaries
• Risk of factory hacking will not be negligible
• Cloud storage will increase data protection needs
• Data encryption needs a breakthrough – EU is way falling behind the US and China
• Push towards the higher bit density and computing speed

As the key challenges for the industry, mathematical culture across organization complementing what is considered technical knowledge needs to be boosted, a cognitive type of the worker needs to be developed, IP needs to be better managed and emphatic people management needs to be developed.

ENF2017 presentations and conclusions will be available HERE.

ProPHOS Chemicals, which submitted to Phase 1 of the SME Instrument (June 2014) a proposal on recovering exhausted extinguishing powder through an eco-innovative process that can extract noble components to use in agriculture, passed a very competitive selection but didn’t get funded. Thanks to the Seal of Excellence received in 2015  ProPHOS Chemicals won 25,000 euros of funding support from the region of Lombardy, thanks to which it was able to go ahead with their idea and was eventually successful in Phase 2 of the SME Instrument.

Click HERE and listen to the success story of Dr. Marco Michelotti, Chief Operating Officer of ProPHOS Chemicals. AMIRES was happy to support ProPHOS in Phase 2 SME Instrument submission.

An article titled “SME Instrument Accessible to Swiss Companies” by Dr. Rudolf Frycek of AMIRES was published in the June issue of the Focus bulletin issued by platinn innovation platform in Switzerland.  The article (in French) can be accessed HERE.  Below is its English translation. Enjoy the reading!

Since January 2017 the Swiss SMEs can receive direct funding for their innovation projects from a specific SME Instrument in Horizon 2020 (2014-2020). The instrument bridges the missing funding between research and development activities towards commercialization of products, services or processes that are ready to face global market competition. The funding was particularly designed to be light in administration and organization and allows the company to fully react to individual needs (e.g. in terms of subcontracting or capital investments). Because the funding is provided to projects with advanced maturity (higher technology readiness level) a single company receives a grant up to 70% of the their costs. This tool allows to share the technological and market risks related to the commercialization of highly innovative projects.

 The programme offers € 50.000 lump sum for Phase I, where an SME can strengthen the technical concept and its feasibility, test pilot application, to start market experimentation, business planning and to secure protection of intellectual property. This information is practically needed for Phase II, which allows prototyping, testing, piloting, miniaturisation, scaling-up and market replication and companies may receive up to € 2.5 Million. By today, about 2650 European SMEs received support and there is more than € 1.8 Billion still available for this instrument till 2020. In 2017 the highest funding is allocated to innovations from the field of healthcare biotechnology sector, disruptive ICT, transport and smart cities mobility, low carbon and efficient energy system, climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials and nanotechnologies advanced materials or advanced manufacturing and processing technologies but others are possible as well.

 The Swiss innovative SMEs are gradually reacting to this opportunity, which can boost their international growth (till now 61 SMEs submitted a project to Phase I and 10 for Phase II). Despite the demonstrated fact the supported companies were mainly from industrialization or renewable life-cycle stage, the start-ups are not excluded. The competition for funding is relatively high (with success rate of 6-9%) therefore only the projects with high-potential innovation, demonstrated capacity and well-prepared proposals have chances to succeed. The other success factors are scalability of the business model, long-term value, team composition and experience.

 The platinn clients can receive a complementary coaching for having higher success in the selection process. The service Cooperation provides proven hands-on experience with proposal preparation to both phases. The service Business Development helps with methodology on the business planning and market experimentation.

On 7 – 10 May, 2017, the 5th International Conference on Bio-Sensing Technology took place in Riva Del Garda, Italy.  The event brought together leaders from industry and academia to exchange and share their experiences, present research results, explore collaborations and to spark new ideas, with the aim of developing new projects and exploiting new technology for bio-sensing applications. During the event, several interesting research results were presented including: the development of biosensors using optical fibres, of cotton fibres coated with CNTs, the description of different PCR free techniques, the demonstration of a wearable (wristband) graphene sensor and of a paper based microfluidic devices for urine analysis. Posters on the integration of Raman within multi-task instrument and the concept of Internet of the Body were shown respectively by Horiba and IBM. Presentations about IoT/Connected workplaces (stress/fatigue monitoring), OLED used in lateral flow strips and detection of E.coli in the ice cream production were provided by the industries Toshiba, Cambridge Display Technology and Carpigiani.

Linked to the presentation from the US Naval Research Lab regarding the importance of funding for research activities, Elena Turco of AMIRES presented ULTRAPLACAD project as a success case. The project impact, IVD and liquid biopsy market overview and benchmarking with existing systems on market were presented (click HERE for the presentation).

European Commission has released first Horizon 2020 (H2020) SME Instrument Impact Report,  which highlights the first insights into the growth trends of selected SMEs funded by the SME Instrument, their profile as well as the key features of the programme that have made its unique selling points. It contains cumulative data from 2014 to 2016.  The main highlights of the first three years of the Instrument include:  31.000 applications, 2 457 SMEs supported and €882 million distributed in 36 countries. The SME Instrument has generated on average a 250% increase in turn-over and 122% in employment for funded companies. The programme celebrated two IPOs, €480.7 million of private investment leveraged and deployed 400 coaches to help the funded SMEs fine-tune their market strategy and make contacts. This is addition to getting companies ranked in lists of fast-growing companies, precious awards and plenty of innovative entries on the market.

Click HERE for hightlights and HERE for the full report.

Being in its third year, the MEDILIGHT project, an aim of which is to develop a smart medical device for professional wound care, already brought about interesting research results in its biological part.  Click HERE and find out more!

A shortened version of the press release has also been published by EU Publications Office on CORDIS, Community Research and Development Information Service (click HERE).

Since the association of Switzerland as of 1 June 2017, 69 SMEs submitted their applications into the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument calls.  During the first 2017 cut-off, Swiss entities applied for funding of 16 Phase 1 and 4 Phase 2 projects.  However, in the second 2017 cut-off, 43 Phase 1 and 6 Phase 2 applications were received. AMIRES was happy to support several of Swiss applicants through its coaching and consulting services.

An updated version of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme Annotated Model Grant Agreement has been published on 21 April 2017. The updates are highlighted and concern the following areas:

• “International partner” as a new type of the third party
• Internal invoicing rules
• In-house consultants – eligibility criteria
• New definition additional remuneration

Click HERE for the updated document.

On Thursday, 4 May 2017, the sixth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled “Implantable polymeric scaffolds for neural repair” was be given by Prof. Maria Letizia Focarete, Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician” and Health Sciences and Technologies – Interdepartmental Center for Industrial Research, University of Bologna  (click HERE for a bio) and Prof. Laura Calzà, Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology and Health Sciences and Technologies – Interdepartmental Center for Industrial Research, University of Bologna (click HERE for a CV).

In their presentation, prof. Focarete and prof. Calzà introduced activities of the Health Sciences and Technologies—Interdepartmental Center for Industrial Research of the University of Bologna related to regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, and then illustrated a couple of recent research achievements on implantable polymeric biomaterials for neural repair. The presentation could be downloaded HERE and the recording of the webinar is available HERE.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

SABINA (SmArt BI-directional multi eNergy gAteway) project partners met during M6 meeting in Sevilla, Spain, at the premises of Schneider Electric. Apart from the overview of the work achieved during last 6 months in technical Work Packages, two workshops took place dedicated to business models and test site scenarios.

The consortium had also the opportunity to meet with its three External Advisory Board members, who took part in interesting discussions and provided valuable advices for SABINA’s future work.

SABINA partners will meet again in autumn 2017 in Denmark.

The European Parliament has approved additional €200 million for Horizon 2020, the current EU research and innovation funding programme, by adopting a compromise on the mid-term review of the EU budget. The €200 million top-up for Horizon 2020 is part of additional means amounting to €6 billion that will help the EU tackle urgent challenges such as the migration crisis, strengthening security, boosting growth and creating jobs. The additional funds will be distributed as follows:

• €50 million for the European Research Council
• €55 million for Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation part of Horizon 2020
• €50 million for the European Innovation Council
• €45 million for High Performance Computers, under Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies part of Horizon 2020

Click HERE for more.

In the recently published Annual Report 2016, European Patent Office (EPO) shared information about the record number of granted patents in 2016 – 96 000, which is 40% more than in 2015.  In 2016, EPO received about 160 000 European patent applications, nearly at the same level as in 2015. Such high number indicates a strong interest of innovating firms to assert their patent rights on the European technology market. Despite a slight decrease, the Medical technology  remained the number one field in which the most applications were filed. The strongest growth was seen in Electrical machinery/apparatus/energy, followed by Transport and Computer technology. Pharmaceuticals and Organic fine chemistry saw the greatest drop in the number of applications. European companies filed the most applications in nine of the ten most active fields of technology, with US companies leading only in Computers. Click HERE to find out more.

Source: European Patent Office, Annual Report 2016, Country Profiles

The MEDILIGHT collaborative project on developing a smart, self-adaptable system, which will provide personalized light therapy to patients with chronic wounds was featured as a new pipeline product for would care management in the GlobalData Medical Intelligence Center Daily Alert published on 13 April 2017. GlobalData provides reports with data on a wide range of key metrics and indicators in the consumer goods, retail, technology and healthcare sectors along with valuable insight to enable more informed decision making. The information is available only to subscribed users (click HERE).

On 6 April 2017, AMIRES took part in an online brokerage webinar on Horizon 2020 Energy Efficiency 2017 Calls organized by the C-Energy 2020 project. During the event, the upcoming Horizon 2020 call for proposals for Energy Efficiency with deadline on 7 June 2017 were discussed and the participants had an opportunity to pitch their project ideas/cooperation offers.  AMIRES was represented by Dr. Václav Smítka (Programme Manager for Energy and Energy Efficiency), who had a presentation on AMIRES´ services and capabilities (click HERE). If you have missed the event, you can listen to the recording and download all the presentations HERE.

Shall you have any questions regarding the below upcoming calls, please do note hesitate to contact Dr. Smítka at smitka@amires.eu.

Horizon 2020 Energy Efficiency Call for Proposals 2017 – Call topics:

Heating and cooling
EE-02-2017: Improving the performance of inefficient district heating networks  https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-02-2017.html

Consumers
EE-06-2017: Engaging private consumers towards sustainable energy https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-06-2016-2017.html
EE-09-2017: Engaging and activating public authorities https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-09-2016-2017.html

Buildings
EE-11-2017: Overcoming market barriers and promoting deep renovation of buildings https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-11-2016-2017.html
EE-14-2017: Construction skills https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-14-2016-2017.html

Industry
EE-15-2017: Increasing capacities for actual implementation of energy efficiency measures in industry and services  https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-15-2017.html
EE-18-2017: Energy efficiency of industrial parks through energy cooperation and mutualised energy services  https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-18-2017.html
EE-19-2017: Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions for energy efficiency  https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-19-2017.html

Financing energy efficiency
EE-22-2017: Project Development Assistance https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-22-2016-2017.html
EE-23-2017: Innovative financing schemes https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-23-2017.html
EE-24-2017: Making the energy efficiency market investible https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/ee-24-2016-2017.html

The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR) has opened a new possibility for financing of excellent projects of Czech small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).  For applications submitted into the very competitive Horizon 2020 (H2020) SME Instrument, which are evaluated as high quality projects but due to a limited funding can not be financed, European Commission issues so called Seal of Excellence certificate.  Through its GAMA programme – subprogramme 2, TACR will support projects, which received this Seal of Excellence under Phase 1 of the SME instrument. The first call for submission of applications opened on 20 March 2017. Czech SMEs which submitted their application into the February SME Instrument cut-off and received the Seal of Excellence certificate will have chance to apply for the Czech national funding until 2 May 2017.

While on the national level this option to finance recipients of the Seal of Excellence certificate is utilized by 16 EU member states, on the regional level it is only by 9 states. In the Czech Republic, up until recently, only SMEs headquartered in the South Moravian Region were able to receive such support.

Click HERE for information about the call (in Czech) and HERE about an information seminar for applicants, which will take place on 10 April 2017 (also in Czech).

MEDILIGHT project on chronic wound healing by a personalized light therapy has released its brochure.  It offers information about the project scope, chronic wounds, MEDILIGHT product, its application and more. Click HERE and enjoy the reading!

The project coordinator Giuseppe Spoto (INBB) and project manager Elena Turco (AMIRES) had the opportunity to present the ULTRAPLACAD project to the editor of GenomeWeb, an independent online news organization based in New York and focused on the latest advancements in molecular biology research and molecular diagnostics. The article, entitled “European Consortium Developing Bimodal Liquid Biopsy Test for Colorectal Cancer”, was published on 20^th March 2017. During the interview with the journalist Giuseppe Spoto described the project objectives, its innovative technological aspects, the Consortium of partners, their roles and the first achieved results. Elena Turco highlighted the socio-economic impact that ULTRAPLACAD will have on European citizens and presented the preliminary plan for the validation of the final solution and its introduction into the market. For more information about ULTRAPLACAD click HERE. The entire GenomeWeb article is available HERE.

On Thursday, 16 March, the fifth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  A presentation titled “Application of stable FGF2 in wound healing” was delivered by Dr. Zdenek Rucka, former researcher in the field of molecular biology now working as sales and marketing manager at Enantis, s.r.o. Enantis is a growing biotechnology company located in Brno, Czech Republic, specializing on protein engineering and enzyme technologies.

Webinar summary:

Brief introduction of Enantis and its R&D activities was followed by information about current and future use of growth factors (mainly FGFs) in regenerative medicine. Stable FGF2 developed by protein engineers at Enantis was introduced and its possible use in wound healing was further discussed. The opportunities for collaboration with other partners were presented.

The presentation could be downloaded HERE and the recording of the webinar HERE.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs). Download all the previous webinars HERE.

On 21 February 2017, AMIRES along with Service d’economie, and Euresearch held an event for companies from the Canton of Neuchâtel to present opportunities offered by H2020, particularly the news related to SME Instrument, previously not available to Swiss SMEs.  During the workshop, Dr. Rudolf Fryček (AMIRES) presented  the overall mission of Cantonal platinn support towards more accessible, less risky and less complicated involvement of companies in H2020 and he has shown the service started in 2015 is successful already, as it generated more than 2.2 M€ in H2020 grants for Neuchâtel-based companies.  Mr. Michel Delabays and Mr. Emile Dupont from Euresearch introduced the changes related to full association of Switzerland and the SME instrument conditions. R. Fryček shared the long-term experience in coaching and supporting SMEs, including applying for SME Instrument grants. He also presented some exemplary projects related to Neuchâtel industries. Some of the key messages were:

• H2020 provides many opportunities for funding strategically focused innovation

• SME Instrument is a unique tool for Swiss-based companies, particularly those having European Value chain and are targeting pan-European or Global market with their innovation

• 16 Swiss SMEs submitted already their SME Instrument Phase I and already 4 Swiss SMEs submitted to Phase II and these numbers will grow exponentially

• Testimonials of successful AMIRES supported SME Instrument applicants will be presented during the National event in Bern on 14th March 2017

After a lab visit at Alpes Lasers, a Swiss engineering company pioneering advanced light sources, especially Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) used in various applications such as gas detection, the participants had an opportunity to network, develop new contacts and discuss their project ideas.

As a follow-up to the 10th Concertation & Consultation Workshop on Micro-Nano-Bio- Systems-MNBS 2016, which took place in June 2016 in Otranto, Italy, a report (click HERE) providing a comprehensive overview of the current state of MNBS technology and the market for its products, was published. Focusing on MNBS applications in healthcare, agriculture, food and the environment the workshop discussed “advances made in commercialization of projects and drew on the lessons learnt from late stage or completed projects. The role of validation was strongly reinforced and a clear piece of best practice: ensure validation at the earliest possible stage, emerged. Many projects demonstrated the importance of the development of the commercial team in effective exploitation.”

Some of the MNBS technology recommendations suggested by the report:

• Healthcare applications of MNBS should remain a major focus for the sector, e.g. PoC diagnostics, personalized medicine and health monitoring.
• Expand the applications of MNBS in agriculture, food and environment markets, with a strong focus on low cost systems.
• A strong push to modularization is recommended (Lego brick model).
• Encourage the links between MNBS and other technology areas.

MEDILIGHT project was represented by Dr. Dionysios Manessis, who presented MEDILIGHT research on the chronic wound healing using the light therapy.

After the first 21 months, the project ULTRAPLACAD is halfway, with important results already achieved. NESPRI and PEFSI nanostructure geometries have been identified. Probes for the selected all-RAS mutations and microRNAs have been synthesized. Candidate antigenic peptides for a-TAA detection have been defined. Attomolar detection of all-RAS mutations and femtomolar detection of microRNAs have been demonstrated. Besides the first version of NESPRI and PEFSI reader laboratory prototypes have been completed and the high-volume fabrication of nanostructured disposable chips has been demonstrated.

ULTRAPLACAD will develop a bimodal industrial prototype integrating novel surface plasmon resonance imaging (NESPRI) and plasmon-enhanced fluorescence (PEFSI) sensing technologies. The aim is to detect mutated DNAs, microRNAs and tumor autoantibodies (a-TAAs). The detection of all these molecular cancer biomarkers freely circulating in blood of colorectal cancer patients will be combined in a single device that will overcome hurdles and limitations of the currently available approaches.

ULTRAPLACAD project has a duration of 42 months, please, stay updated about the upcoming project results! For more information, please, visit www.ultraplacad.eu

LASSIE-FP7 project finished on 31^st December 2016. The final prototype demonstrator fabricated by REGENT consists of two LASSIE-FP7 modules of 20 cm x 20 cm. The final luminaire consists of a white plastic rapid-prototyping moulded-housing, a LED foil with printed circuits heat management layers, a light management foil system and a colour conversion film. An active colour feedback loop is also incorporated in each module.

In the last months LASSIE-FP7 project was mentioned in LED Professional Newsletter, LuxLumina magazine, Bulletin of Electrosuisse and Newspaper L’Express. The LASSIE-FP7 final demonstrator was recently shown at Electrosuisse Forum LED 2017  and at Photonics West 2017 in San Francisco.

As stated by the European Commission after the final review meeting, the project has achieved most of its objectives and technical goals for the period with relatively minor deviations.

The final LASSIE-FP7 press release was published by CSEM in 3 languages on 5th December 2016 (click HERE). Objective of the last press release was to announce the end of the project, to highlight the main achievements and perspectives for future exploitation and to remind and advertise the Workshop in Muttenz. The title was “LASSIE-FP7, a European project that explores innovative intelligent lighting solutions” and it contained publishable contents and pictures from the project, including the LASSIE-FP7 final application case.

The key project results and their potential use were also described in articles published at page 44 of LED Professional, in LuxLumina magazine, in Bulletin 10/2016 (October) of Electrosuisse and an interview with the project coordinator was published in the local Newspaper L’Express.”

Congratulations to the LASSIE-FP7 partners!

On 11 – 12 January, 2017, a kick-off meeting of a new H2020 InSCOPE project took place in Eidhoven, the Netherlands.  The project will set-up an open access pilot line service for Hybrid TOLAE (H-TOLAE) systems. It will build a revolutionary platform business model for a faster transition of product concept from R&D to products and a support of the build of manufacturing capacity.  The applications addressed cover automotive, healthcare, smart packaging and buildings. The project will build upon expertise of the following partners:

1. TNO, Netherlands
2. CPI, United Kingdom
3. CEA, France
4. VTT, Finland
5. INTERUNIVERSITAIR MICRO-ELECTRONICACENTRUM, Belgium
6. PHILIPS LIGHTING, Netherlands
7. ROBERT BOSCH, Germany
8. WALTER PAK, Spain
9. GSK, United Kingdom
10. KONE, Finland
11. AMIRES, Czech Republic

More information to follow soon!

According to the European Commission DG Enterprise and Industry, there are more than 23 million SMEs in the EU, representing 99% of businesses. Those SMEs are a key driver for economic growth, innovation, employment and social integration. In Switzerland in 2009 an average of 53.6% of sales revenues were generated by exports by SMEs[1].

Horizon 2020 introduced a new funding instrument specifically designed for innovative SMEs. The dedicated SME instrument’s supports close-to-market activities, with the aim to give a strong boost to breakthrough innovation. Highly innovative SMEs with a clear commercial ambition and a potential for high growth and internationalisation are the prime target.

Almost half of the companies applying to the SME Instrument are micro-sized enterprises and almost a third are younger than 3 years (start-ups). 11% of the companies are backed by accelerators and 12% are spin-offs by academia[2]. On average the profile of the typical SME selected for funding has been on the market for 10.8 years, has an annual turnover of € 4 million and employs 21 people. It’s a good sign if the SME is based in an innovation hub, has received grants or venture capital funding, received innovation-related tax benefits, or won an innovation prize in the last 2 years[3]. Since its launch in 2014, SME Instrument attracts actors never involved in European R&I Programmes: newcomers are more and more successful in getting an SME Instrument grant (87% in 2015 compared to 80% in 2014).

Profile of the SMEs winners (2014-2016)[4]

SME Instrument is highly competitive with success rate 8% for Phase 1 and 6% for Phase 2. Spanish SMEs have been particularly successful, followed by firms from Italy, UK and Germany. Compared to other EU countries, Spain has a net of small innovative businesses and is efficient in making use of the offered by EU funding. Most of the Spanish funded companies work in the field of ICT, followed by energy efficiency and sustainable food.

It is worth noting that Italy and Spain account for the highest numbers of evaluated projects. A high number of submissions per country does not automatically correlate with a larger share of selected projects. Whereas some innovation support infrastructures encourage as many companies as possible to apply for the SME Instrument, other national and regional systems put a stronger emphasis on advice, such as determining the stage of product development at which submitting a project proposal could be the most beneficial for an SME. This approach appears to create more results (i.e. in Ireland).

Manufacturing is the most common activity for the businesses applying to SME Instrument and the ICT sector counts the biggest number of applicants and selected companies. In 2015, most of the projects funded were in the area of low-carbon energy systems. It was closely followed by food production and processing and biomarkers and medical devices. The analysis done at EASME shows that the renewable energy market is important for many sectors like manufacturing, S&T activities, Electricity, Water and waste treatment, Construction.

For the first cut-off of 2017, ICT remained the most popular topic, followed by Healthcare in biotechnology that ranked higher than usual. In fact, January cut-off was the only opportunity in 2017 to submit proposals on clinical research for validation on biomarkers that will be closed for the rest of the year. Other popular topics were Energy, Transport, Eco-innovation & raw materials and Agriculture & forestry.

The share of projects above threshold has increased over time. At the beginning of the programme 24% of projects scored above threshold. This share has almost doubled to 40% in November 2015. Applicants have clearly developed an understanding of what is expected of their applications. This has led to an increase of the overall quality of submitted project proposals during these two years.

The SME Instrument allows companies to resubmit their projects for evaluation without treating them differently from a first submission. The large majority (90%) of resubmissions are resubmitted once or twice. A majority of resubmitted projects improve their score. Around 55% of all resubmissions get a better score compared to previous submissions. Resubmissions in Phase 1 double their chance of being selected. The success rate in Phase 1 is 11% for resubmissions, compared to 7% for first time submissions. For Phase 2, the trend is less accentuated but resubmissions are still more likely to be funded (4,4%) compared to first time submissions (4,1%). In conclusion, resubmissions offer the companies an opportunity to improve their applications both in concept and in presentation, thus increasing chances of receiving funding.

For any questions or more information please contact Elena Turco.

[1] Swiss SMEs are small but international by Alexander Kuenzle, (Adapted from German by Julia Slater)

[2] EASME’s report of the first two years of implementation of the SME Instrument 2014-2015

[3] http://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/horizons-2020-sme-instrument

[4] The European SME Instrument, Catalysing European Innovation by Gabriela Mara (EASME) 23rd Nov. 2016

In 2017, €437.5 mio of a financial support is available support to SMEs with innovative business idea at European or global scale. For that purpose 13 topics were identified by the European Commission. Proposals can be submitted for:

Phase 1. Concept & Feasibility Assessment

Idea to concept (6 months). The European Union will provide €50 000 in funding, and carry out a feasibility study to verify the viability of the proposed disruptive innovation or concept. The SME will draft an initial business proposal (around 10 pages).

Phase 2. Demonstration, Market Replication, R&D

Concept to Market-Maturity (1-2 years) Assisted by the EU, the SME will further develop its proposal through innovation activities, such as demonstration, testing, piloting, scaling up, and miniaturisation. It will also draft a more developed business plan (around 30 pages). Proposals will be based on a business plan developed on phase 1 or otherwise. The EU aims to contribute between €0.5 million and €2.5 million.

Phase 3. Commercialisation

Prepare for Market Launch. SMEs will receive extensive support, training, mentorship and facilitating access to risk finance as the project is further polished into a marketable product.

The deadlines for submission of applications in 2017 are:

Phase 1: 15 February, 3 May, 6 September, 8 November

Phase 2: 18 January, 6 April, 1 June, 18 October

In developing innovative ideas and strategies, AMIRES can be of your help with our vast experience in this programme and expertise in SME coaching.

*Submission of proposals into Phase one SMEInst-05 Supporting innovative SMEs in the healthcare biotechnology sector is no longer possible.

AMIRES and Mendel University in Brno (MENDELU), the oldest independent specialized university in the Czech Republic, agreed to launch a long-term cooperation, during which AMIRES consultants will be assisting the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Mendel University with getting into strategically defined projects and support their preparation, technology scouting, including training of internal staff.

MENDELU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is a part of the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC). Its scientific activities focus mainly on the areas of Metallomics, Bioanalytical instruments, Health, Environment, and Advanced materials. Click HERE for more.

Click HERE to find out more about AMIRES consulting models.

Intelligent Efficient Solid State Lighting was a subject of Swissphotonics Workshop held on 12 December, 2016,  in the Pantheon at Muttenz near Basel. Around 100 representatives from R&D, companies, light designers, architects, end-users (e.g. large retailers, etc.) attended the event. The workshop was divided into two sessions: in the first session final results of the European Project LASSIE-FP7 were presented, with focus on the development of large-area intelligent SSL modules with high efficiency and high lighting quality; the second session was devoted to technical developments and industrial applications in the field of smart lighting, spanning from components to systems, as well as on the potential of SSL for innovative solutions for human centric lighting.

Carlos Lee, EPIC: “You have a unique opportunity to network with people from BASF, Insolight, Philips Lighting, Regent , Zumtobel Lighting, Fraunhofer, Lfoundry, Swedish Energy Agency, Swiss lighting association, Albis Photonics, CSEM, Exalos, Holst Centre, HTW Chur, Rolic Technologies, TRIOPTICS, VTT, AMIRES, Bartenbach, CEA, cenogent, Electrosuisse, Empa, Gaiker, Geting, iart, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Kimoto, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, Metas, Sefar , Swiss Federal Office of Energy, Swissflex Microelectronics, …”

Dr. Rolando Ferrini of CSEM, the coordinator of LASSIE-FP7 introduced the large area lights as an extensively used product in commercial lighting applications. “At the time of LASSIE-FP7 launch the costs for high-quality solutions were quite high and the true potential of modern technologies wasn’t utilized. Even though OLEDs constitute a possible solution for this type of lighting, their price is by far not competitive. The main challenge LASSIE-FP7 had to face was to find a concept for a thin fixture that would offer high light quality and color, or at least CCT tuneability, at a reasonable price, while having a small environmental impact. The key achievements of LASSIE-FP7 are:

• high CRI above 90 with
• high color accuracy within 3 to 1 step MacAdam ellipsis and
• constant color over time due to an intelligent sensor feedback loop

Important aspects on regulations and standards and their unification in USA, Europe and China were presented by Dr. Peter Bennich. Applications for Superluminescent LEDs were presented by the company EXALOS. The role of pilotlines for OLED manufacturing and applications were presented by Dr. Erno Langendijk, coordinator of PI-SCALE project, and innovations in the software for improving the OLED performance were presented by FLUXIM. The last part of the workshop was dedicated to the effect of light on humans and the innovative solutions in the design, software programming and colour tuning. During the open discussion, current limitations and market opportunities were discussed with the strong participation of all the participants.

In the Exhibition area 16 booths were setup with innovative prototypes shown by the R&D partners, the LASSIE-FP7 demos, the REGENT Luminaires and other products and services in the light domain. 2 booths were dedicated to media partners and a booth for AMIRES. During the workshop AMIRES had the opportunity to promote its projects (including MEDILIGHT and PI-SCALE) and the AMIplexus product.

To find out more about LASSIE-FP7 technologies, Human Centric Lighting and Internet of Things, and others, see LED Professional Review (p.44 -48). To download the event presentations click HERE.

30 million CZK (i.e. 1.1 mil EUR) for the development of wound healing products was awarded from the H2020 SME instrument to Enantis, a biotechnological spin-off of the Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic.  The funded research is based on the fibroblast growth factor, a protein used for example in the stem cells research.  It is foreseen that the project will develop products for a more effective healing of hard-to-heal wounds, such as the burns or diabetic wounds.  According to the vice-rector of the Masaryk University the project would never succeed without a close collaboration of biologists, chemists, and business and economic experts. AMIRES was happy to partner with the South Moravian Innovation Centre to support this success story.

Click HERE for an EASME article,  HERE for a TV broadcast, HERE for a press release (both in Czech).

The entire AMIRES team would like to say thank you for all the exciting innovation endeavours we have undertaken together, making 2016 AMIRES most successful year ever.  We wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! In 2017, let’s add together even more edges to your AMIplexus cooperation networks.

On 16 December 2016, the Swiss Parliament adopted the application law for Art.121a of the Constitution, respecting the Bilateral Agreements with the EU in all aspects. On the same day, the Swiss Federal Council ratified the protocol extending the free movement of persons to Croatia, thus fulfilling the necessary condition for Switzerland’s full association to Horizon 2020 as of 2017.

Even though the ongoing projects are not affected by these developments, from now on the respective EU funding for the Swiss partners, as participants from associated countries, has to be claimed in all proposals. In order to receive grants, the Swiss entities have to request relevant funding through the European Commission.

According to Dr. Peter Erni, Swiss National NCP Coordinator, “In the unlikely event that Switzerland should not be associated to Horizon 2020 from 2017 onward, i.e. would have the status of an industrialised Third Country, the Federal Administration will provide national funding for the Swiss share of successful proposals. A precaution measure that is recommended is to have a least three project partners from an EU Member State or an Associated Country excluding the Swiss partner for collaborative projects.”

Click HERE for a fact sheet.

Yesterday, the European Commission published in its Success stories information about a successfully finished UNIVSEM – Universal Scanning Electron Microscopy – project, which combined ‘seeing’ thanks to a scanning electron microscope that uses electrons instead of light, ‘touching’ via a scanning probe microscope that drags a tiny pin-like stylus over the surface and ‘smelling’ through chemical analysis. Dr. Rudolf Fryček, CEO and founder of AMIRES gave an interview to the European Commission press, in which he, among other things, describes how a specialized project management can free up project partners to focus on the research and technical side, which was key to the success of the UNIVSEM project.

Click HERE to read the UNIVSEM Success Story interview with Dr. Fryček.

In a joint study by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), an impact of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) on the European economy was analyzed.  The study found out that more than 42 % of the total economic activity in EU is generated by IPR-intensive industries.  Moreover, about 38 % of EU employment is said to arise from businesses with higher than average use of IPR.  Wages in such industries are more than 46 % higher than in other industries.

According to the EPO President Benoît Battistelli “Intellectual property assets are increasingly important for innovating companies, especially for SMEs, but also for research centres and universities. They have a positive impact on jobs, economic growth and prosperity in Europe.”

Click HERE to read more.

Kick-off meeting of anew Horizon 2020 MOSAIC project took place in Eibar (SPAIN), on 1 – 2 December, 2016.  The partners discussed technical issues relevant to the upcoming project activities and potential dissemination and exploitation routes. An outcome of this project will be the design, manufacturing and validation of an innovative CSP concept that will have low implementation costs at the highest plant efficiencies,  compared to the current state-of-the-art technologies, and that will reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The Consortium is composed of 10 partners from 6 different EU states:

• IK4-TEKNIKER, Spain (Coordinator)
• AMIRES SRO, Czech Republic
• Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie, Belgium
• COBRA INSTALACIONES Y SERVICIOS S.A, Spain
• FUNDACION CENTRO TECNOLOGICO AVANZADO DE ENERGIAS RENOVABLES DE ANDALUCIA, Spain
• FUNDACION CENER-CIEMAT, Spain
• POLITECNICO DI TORINO, Italy
• RIOGLASS SOLAR SA, Spain
• Senior Flexonics GmbH, Germany
• Sirea, France

Press release of the meeting is available HERE. Stay tuned for the incoming news on the MOSAIC project!

On Wednesday, 29 November 2016,  the fourth from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  This fourth event titled „Nanofibrous materials – from polymeric solutions to their applications“, was led by Dr. Marek Pokorný, Chief researcher in Nanotechnology department, and  Dr. Kateřina Knotková, Chief application researcher in Nanotechnology department, of CONTIPRO, a Czech-based producer of bioactive compounds for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.

In their presentation, Drs. Pokorný and Kontková:

• Introduced research development activities at CONTIPRO (click HERE for more information);
• Provided information about their unique 4SPIN^® technologies (i.e. electrospinning, electrospraying, electroblowing and near-field electrospinning) – a desktop electrospinning device used in the nanofiber production and the preparation of nanofiber layers from solutions of biopolymers and synthetic polymer (click HERE for more info and HERE for a video);
• Gave examples of some targeted applications;
• Mentioned their openness to new interesting R&D collaborations.

Click HERE to see the presentation and HERE to listen to the presentation recording.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs).

On 3 – 4 November, 2016, a kick-off meeting of the new Horizon 2020 SABINA project took place.  During this first General Assembly meeting, contractual obligations have been discussed and project management procedures and plan have been agreed on by the partners, which enabled a quick start of the project work.  The main objective of SABINA is to provide a beyond state of the art technological solution that brings services to the medium and low voltage grid and will be on the market within five to ten years. SABINA focuses on energy storage and synergies between electric and thermal network and is inherently compatible with demand-response. This goal will be achieved thanks to a close collaboration of 9 partners from 7 countries, namely:

• SMS ENERGY SERVICES LIMITED, UK
• CSEM CENTRE SUISSE D’ELECTRONIQUE ET DE MICROTECHNIQUE SA -RECHERCHE ET DEVELOPPEMENT, CH
• UNIVERSIDAD DE NAVARRA, ES
• INSERO E-MOBILITY AS, DK
• FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE RECERCA DE L’ENERGIA DE CATALUNYA, ES
• SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC ESPANA SA, ES
• NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS – NTUA, GR
• PAN EUROPEAN ICT & EBUSINESS NETWORK FOR SME ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALSANS BUT LUCRATIF, BE
• AMIRES, CZ

SABINA project website and more information will come soon!

It is about a month, since the Re-Industrialization of the European Union 2016 (REinEU2016) event took place in Bratislava, Slovakia.  The conference convened hundreds of representatives from European and international research, innovation communities, and the business sector, who discussed European re-industrialization in the following sessions: Technology trends for industries, Materials for energy and automotive, Industrial symbiosis and new value chain, R&D impact for industry, Human resources in reindustrialized Europe, Financial track and innovation. An outcome of the event was a development of Bratislava Agenda: A call for a European Industrial Revolution to Re-industrialise Europe. The process established by the 2016 Dutch and Slovak Presidencies of the Council of the European Union asserts the following key pillars of Re-industrialising Europe:

1. Focusing on distinctive European innovations, including disruptive innovations;
2. Fostering talent and skills for innovation;
3. Bridging the innovation divide in Europe;
4. Developing a common ecosystem for re-industrialising Europe;
5. Improving quality of life, protection of human health and the environment.

Read more about Bratislava Agenda.

During the event, AMIRES hosted in its stand a launch of AMIplexus, a cooperation visualization engine, is an essential tool for H2020 project coordinators, innovation project managers, group leaders, technology scouts, advisers and coaches. Demonstrated by the large interest from the audience AMIplexus is an instrument for gaining a competitive advantage when developing innovative collaborative projects and provides a fundamental overview of any type of technology of application field, including key movers and their relations.  To find out more about AMIplexus contact Dr. Rudolf Fryček.

The European Commission (EC) published an analysis of the first two years of the Horizon 2020 Programme (click HERE for the entire report).  To minimize the administrative burden imposed on the participants, EC has directed its efforts towards simplification, contributing to the number of applications increasing by 23.9% between 2014 and 2015 and increasing the share of new participants (incl. SMEs and large companies).  On the other hand, the success rates have dropped significantly, making the chances of obtaining funding about half they were in 7th Framework Programme (7FP). In 2015, the share of proposals receiving funding was only 10,7%, demonstrating and increasing number of high-quality proposals.

Some of the other report key takeouts:

• In 2015, Austrian institutions had the highest success rate (13,9%), followed by Belgian and Irish organizations
• In 2015, countries with the lowest success rates were Bulgaria (5,6%), Latvia and Hungary
• A country with the most significant drop in the success rate between 2014 and 2015 is Latvia with 16,7% to 6,1% decrease
• Since Horizon 2020 began, more than 39% of all applications came from university candidates, 35.2% from the private sector and 18.4% from research organisations
• In LEIT and social challenges SMEs have received 23.7% of funding overall, and made up 27.6% of participations
• Submissions from the US, China, Canada and Australia make up almost half of all successful applications from outside Europe
• Time-to-grant has shortened significantly compared to 7FP, decreasing from 303 days in 7FP to 184,9 in 2015 H2020

On 24^th November 2016, the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) hosted a H2020 Coordinators’ Workshop on Concentrated Solar Power. The aim of the workshop is to investigate potential synergies between projects in the area of Concentrated Solar Power. Fabrizio Perrotta presented the dissemination and communication of the AMIRES CSP portfolio (WASCOP and MOSAIC projects) and participated in the group discussions to identify potential synergies and overlaps. The main follow up actions after the workshop are:

• Background and methodology benchmark between Sister projects
• Conjoint training, summer schools and workshops
• Common booth in key CSP conferences and events
• Increasing the stakeholders’ identification and involvement

To find out more about the event please contact Fabrizio Perrotta.

In a quest to nurture research and innovation excellence across EU and closing the gap between high- and low-performing EU countries in R&I , the European Commission has selected this week 10 knowledge centres that will receive together €140 million funding from Horizon 2020. This action will help bring these centres located in low-performing countries in R&I to the level of scientific excellence. Each project will receive maximum €15 million from the so-called Teaming instrument run under Horizon 2020, which is designed to facilitate institution building in eligible countries in close cooperation with Europe’s leading scientific and innovation powerhouses. The overall budget for these measures is expected to increase during the last three years of Horizon 2020.

AMIRES was happy to support its partner HiLASE in applying for funding of a new „Centre of Excellence“ (CoE) for the industrial exploitation of new laser technology in the Czech Republic. Scientists from the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences  and the STFC’s Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire, UK, will work together on the 5.5 year / €45 M  project. HiLASE incorporates advanced solid state laser systems that are ideally suited to hi-tech industrial applications, opening up new processing techniques for surface hardening, semiconductor processing and micro/nano-machining, for example. Click HERE for find out more about the project.

On 23 November, 2016, the Technology Center of the Czech Academy of Science hosted in partnership with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic a SME Instrument Conference. The aim of the event was to support motivation and success rate of Czech entities in this specific Horizon 2020 domain.  During the conference, Elena Turco of AMIRES has delivered a presentation PHOSave: recipe for successful proposal re-submission, revealing tips and suggestions for proposal improvement.  The key takeaways are:

• Reach out to a consultant for the interpretation of the Evaluation Summary Report (to have a third-party perspective)
• Respect the structure of the European Commission templates
• Organize the contents in logical sub-chapters (to help the evaluators find the key information)
• Use tables and schemes and add quantified data (both technical and business impact related) already in the first page
• Focus on development of a comprehensive business plan
• Justify well the use of resources and the selection of subcontractors (not just based on quotations but covering other aspects i.e. long term cooperation, recommended by users, etc.)

For further details click HERE to see the presentation or contact Elena Turco.

First WASCOP project newsletter has been published!  It brings you information about the past meetings of this Water Saving for Concentrated Solar Power project, upcoming events in which you can meet WASCOP representatives, or an article published on the H2020 Research and Innovation Magazine. Click HERE and enjoy the reading!

We are pleased to announce the launch of new AMIRES Services and Products sections on AMIRES website.

AMIRES offers mix of complementary services necessary for initiating, planning, executing and managing successful cooperative research, development or innovation projects. We can support your organization in the following areas:

• Proposal and Project Management
• Business Innovation Coaching
• Technology Scouting Consulting
• Event Management

Moreover, as an additional support, AMIRES has developed the following products:

• EffiBUILDING – a database which provides a constantly updated overview and benchmark for companies and research organizations from the energy efficiency field
• AMIplexus – a cooperation visualization engine for H2020 project coordinators, innovation project managers, group leaders, technology scouts, advisors and coaches

Do note hesitate to CONTACT US for further information.

To reinforce our team, AMIRES s.r.o. (Czech Republic) is opening a position for a Project Manager of European R&D&I projects. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 projects in flexible electronics and photonics and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals.

Do you have the following skills/traits?

• Master or doctorate degree in technical field, experience in flexible electronics and
  photonics is an advantage;
• 3+ years of experience with project administration, management or projects proposal
  writing (EU projects or FP7 / H2020 projects are an advantage);
• fluent in English (both verbally and in written), French or German is an advantage;
• very good computer literacy and skills, professional user of MS Office (Word, Excel,
  PowerPoint, Outlook);
• strong communication (both oral and written in formal and informal situations),
  presentation and organisational skills;
• target oriented;
• responsibility, flexibility, ability to work both in team and independently;
• ability to work in multinational environment;
• willingness to travel;
• driving licence;
• knowledge of European R&D&I landscape is an advantage (FP7, H2020, Structural Funds
  etc.).

Then click HERE for more information.

AMIRES has been coaching the policy making activity of The European Sensors System Cluster, particularly for the preparation of Roadmap Towards European Leadership in Sensor Systems – Survey of Industrial Needs. The strategic inputs for new Horizon 2020 Work Programmes for 2018-2020 were presented to various EC services on April 2016 and the final document was provided in October 2016. Click HERE to download the document.

On 4 October, 2016, the third from the series of webinars organized by ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group with a support of AMIRES took place.  The topic of this event was “Extracellular Matrix Analogues for the Pre-clinical Handling and Transplantation of Cells” presented by Prof. Matteo Santin of the Brighton Centre for Regenerative Medicine (BCRM), School of Pharmacy & Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton (click HERE for Prof. Santin’s bio).

In his presentation (click HERE), Prof. Santin introduced the lysine-based biomimetic dendrons synthesis as a platform for extracellular matrix analogue.  He covered extracellular matrix analogues from their pre-clinical handling to in-vivo applications. A great importance was put on their exploitation. The key conclusions of the webinar are:

• Synthetic Extracellular Matrix Analogues can be achieved by macromolecular design, scaled-up batches and GMP conditions

• Extracellular Matrix Analogues can be exploited as:

  • Specialised substrates for cell pre-clinical handling of cellsMore complex clinically-reflective in vitro models including different types of cells and integrated testing the safety/efficacy of drugs and other products in a regenerative niche
  • Functionalisation of 3D scaffolds
  • Bioink for additive manufacturing adding biofunctionality to a variety of more established polymer

Prof. Santin invited the participants to take part in a questionnaire for the Socio-Economic Study of Biomaterial Research Translation in Europe (click HERE) and by doing so provide a significant contribution to the future of R&D in biomaterials in Europe.

He also extended an invitation to take part in the following events:

• 28th Annual Conference of the European Society for Biomaterials ESB2017, 4 – 8 September 2017, Athens
• 6th China – Europe Symposium on Biomaterials in Regenerative Medicine CESB2017, 21 – 24 May, 2017, Porto

Click HERE to listen to the webinar recording.

PI-SCALE partners are pleased to announce that registration for “Hands-on” OLED Lighting Workshop & International OLED B2B Forum is now open. The two events will be held at the GLOW Festival in Eindhoven on 15th November 2016. Click HERE for more information about the events, agenda and registration.

PI-SCALE is a European collaboration to create an open access pilot line service offering world class capability in customised flexible organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) in order to accelerate the commercial adoption of this technology. The project brings together Europe’s experts and state-of-the-art infrastructure for flexible OLED fabrication, and enables companies to quickly and cost effectively test and scale up their flexible OLED lighting or signage concepts and bring them to a level where they are ready to be transferred to a mass production facility.

Preparations for the prestigious event Re-Industrialisation of the EU 2016 are in full swing! Many prominent experts are coming to Bratislava on 26-28 October 2016. Don’t miss the chance be among them. Come to the conference and:

• explore the reindustrialisation strategy of the EU in 3 plenary sessions
• get inspired by more than 100 top level speakers from industry and research
• discover latest trends in 24 parallel sessions
• learn about financing possibilities for your research and innovation
• present the success of your organisation in the exhibition area
• introduce your cooperation ideas and meet potential partner during face-to-face matchmaking session
• participate in 6 site visits and see innovation in the real world
• enjoy the networking in the heart of Central Europe

Thematic focus and parallel sessions are following:

• Technology trends for industries
• Materials for energy and automotive
• Industrial symbiosis and new value chain
• R&D impact for industry
• Human resources in reindustrialized Europe
• Financial track and innovation

You can also promote your company as an exhibitor (via booth or a poster, more information here). Don’t miss your chance to discuss the role of nanotechnologies, advanced materials, manufacturing and processing and biotechnology, and register for the conference by Oct 12.

To learn more about the programme and speakers, visit the website.

Yesterday, the second  from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  This second event titled “Intervertebral disc regeneration assisted by collagen nanostructures” and led by professor Prof. Hans Jörg Meisel, Director of the Center of Neurosciences / Chair of the Dept. of Neurosurgery, BG-Clinic Bergmannstrost Halle, introduced a new and more interactive format of ETPN RegMed WG events.  Prof. Meisel along with his colleague gave a multidisciplinary talk on the novel approaches to the therapy of disc degeneration, such as a self-regenerative implant based adipose mesenchymal stem cells (AMSC), combined with an injectable scaffold material. Click HERE to read the abstract.  Further information about promising use of collagen nano fleeces for medical implants was provided.  Various possibilities of alternative applications were also discussed. The event concluded with propositions for scientific collaborations.  Click HERE to listen to the webinar recording.

The next webinar focused on „Extracellular Matrix Analogues for the Pre-clinical Handling and Transplantation of Cells“ will be held by Prof. Matteo Santin, Brighton Centre for Regenerative Medicine (BCRM), School of Pharmacy&Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton,  on 4 October, 2016, starting at 3 pm.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs).

For more information and registration for future events please contact Dr. Rudolf Fryček.

Congratulation to the ULTRAPLACAD project, success story in the field of early minimal-invasive cancer detection! The article entitled “A compact device to detect the early signs of cancer” is published in the section “Success stories” of the “What’s new on the EC’s Research & Innovation web site” Newsletter (week 38, 2016). Enjoy the reading!

The first official LASSIE-FP7 Newsletter is now available. You can find in there an overview of the Large Area Solid State Intelligent Efficient Luminaires LASSIE-FP7 collaborative research project, the latest research outcomes and information about the partners’ activities. Enjoy the reading!

Interested students or student teams must send their application by 26 September 2016 to the email address: competition@lassie-fp7.eu. The details for participation and the main competition rules are described here.

All finalists will be invited to attend the Workshop on Solid State Lighting being held on 12 December 2016 in Muttenz – Basel, Switzerland, where the winner will be announced. The travel costs within Europe and accommodation of the finalists will be covered. A certificate will be issued by the jury panel. The winner will receive a prize provided by the company REGENT that is sponsoring the Design Competition.

MEDILIGHT, a collaborative project on developing a smart, self-adaptable system, which will provide personalized light therapy to patients with chronic wounds, coordinated by the Technical University of Berlin (TUB), and co-funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, was featured last week by professor Norbert Gretz of the University of Heidelberg and his team on the German RNF TV.  Click HERE to watch the spot.

Yesterday, first from the series of webinars organized by AMIRES and the ETPN Regenerative Medicine Working Group (RegMed WG) took place.  During the event titled “Polymeric Nanocapsules as tools to face challenges in Regenerative Medicine“, Dr. Gemma Vilar Palos, senior researcher in the Human & Environmental Health & Safety in the R&D department of LEITAT Technological Center held a presentation on LEITAT activities and competencies in this area, highlighting the high modularity of polymeric nanoparticles suitable for multiple therapeutic applications.  During the presentation and discussion among the partners several cooperation project ideas and suitable H2020 calls were proposed.  In the event opening section, Dr. Rudolf Fryček of AMIRES presented results of some activities undertaken by the ETPN RegMed Working Group:

• A survey among the ETPN RegMed WG members took place to identify topics of interest for international collaborative research projects.  A greater involvement of businesses in defining the topics will be promoted.
• New therapies and devices for tissue regeneration, Nanotechnology for innovative in-vitro/in-vivo diagnostics methods, Antimicrobial implants and technologies against biofilm, Encapsulation of nanoparticles with novel/smart drug delivery materials and 3D biofabrication & cell printing  ranked on high positions in the topics of interest.
• All identified topics were proposed to the European Commission and may appear in the Work Programme 2018 – 2020.

Click HERE to download Dr. Gemma Vilar Palos’ presentation and HERE to listen to the webinar recording.

The next webinar focused on “Intervertebral disc regeneration assisted by collagen nanostructures” will be held by Prof. Hans Jörg Meisel, Director of the Center of Neurosciences / Chair of the Dept. of Neurosurgery, BG-Clinic Bergmannstrost Halle, on 22 September, 2016, starting at 3 pm.

The ETPN RegMed WG webinars are open to both ETPN members and non-members.  By presenting recent advancement of ETPN members in the Regenerative Medicine field, these webinars aim to improve know how exchange, identification of key European experts and a wider networking between ETPN members (e.g. for collaborative projects). It is also intended to keep webinars open for ETPN non-members, particularly for industrial companies, to facilitate cooperation between researchers and enterprises (mainly SMEs).

The ULTRAPLACAD project, AMIRES is a project manager and a dissemination partner of, just released its brochure and newsletter. ULTRAPLACAD is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and focuses on the development of a compact plasmonic-based device with an integrated microfluidic circuit and functionalized nanostructures for the detection of DNA, microRNA and tumor autoantibodies. Download the brochure and the newsletter to find out more about the project overview, intended impact and the latest news.

Download the brochure HERE.

Download the newsletter HERE.

As the agreement on Switzerland’s participation in the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission provides for Switzerland’s full association to Horizon 2020 from 1 January 2017, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) has released the following recommendations regarding participation of researchers in Switzerland in H2020 projects:

1. To request EU contribution: It is important that for all proposal submissions,  Individual Grants (ERC & Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships) as well as Collaborative projects, participants from Switzerland request funding from the EU (EU contribution).
2. To ensure the eligibility of consortium submitting collaborative projects: A consortium has to consist of at least three independent partners from at least three EU Member States or Associated Countries, in addition to the Swiss partner(s).

In practice it means that “whenever taking part in a H2020 proposal submission, Swiss partners should request their eligible project costs as grant from the European Commission as if Switzerland would be associated from January 2017 onwards. The criteria for being eligible for European funding has been defined as the signature date of the Grant Agreement (GA) and the GA signature of any proposal to be submitted will be in 2017. However, it is still essential that a consortium be composed of at least at least 3 organisations from different EU Member States or Associated countries in addition to the Swiss partner in order to be sure that the project is eligible in the case that Switzerland will not be associated as of 2017. Moreover and as already today, Swiss partners can also coordinate projects, whatever the status of Switzerland will be as of 2017.”

For more details, please see the factsheet of the European Commission, point 8, and the SERI factsheet.

With an update of the 2017 Work Programmes Open Research Data (ORD) Pilot was extended to cover all thematic areas of Horizon 2020. This change applies to all calls announced after 26.7.2016.  Otherwise the setup of the ORD pilot remains the same and is described in Article 29.3 of the Horizon 2020 Model Grant Agreement(s) or its equivalent. The ORD Pilot applies to the data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications. Additionally, projects can choose to make other data available for open access and need to describe their approach in a Data Management Plan (DMP, see below). Any costs related to open access to research data and related data management and data sharing costs (including the creation of a DMP) will be reimbursed and specific technical and professional support services will be provided.

Further new element in Horizon 2020 is the use of Data Management Plans (DMPs) detailing what data the project will generate, whether and how it will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved. The use of a Data Management Plan is required for all Horizon 2020 projects, except if they opt-out of sharing their research data for one of the reasons indicated in general annex L. Note that a DMP is not required at submission stage. Rather, projects must provide a first version of the DMP within the first six months of the project (as a deliverable), to be updated as appropriate.

Click HERE for more information on the data management.

On 8 July, during the information day on ‘Health, demographic change and well-being’, a work programme for 2017 (WP 2017) was introduced.  In an opening speech, Dr. Ruxandra Draghia–Akli, Director of DG Research and Innovation, mentioned that the total budget for WP 2017 is 486 mil. EUR, which will be allocated into calls on personalized medicine, coordination activities types of calls, SME instrument topics, and other actions such as InnovFin ID and Birth Day Prize. The final version of WP 2017 will be published at the end of July 2017 (click HERE to see the version published as of 25 July 2016).

As last year the success rate in the SME calls was very low with a high number of high quality proposals, in 2017 European Commission has decided to allocate additional funds (i.e. 35 mil EUR) to the SME topics.  According to Dr. Draghia-Akli, there is an evidence that companies that have received Phase 2 SME funding are more likely to attract private funding, thus, have a very good growth potential.

Health related SME calls to open in WP 2017 are:

• SMEInst-05-2016-2017 – Supporting innovative SMEs in the healthcare biotechnology sector
  • Cell technologies in medical applications
  • Clinical research for the validation of biomarkers and/or diagnostic medical devices
• SMEInst-06-2016-2017 – Accelerating market introduction of ICT solutions for Health, Well-Being and Ageing Well

If you are interested in exploring funding options for your organization, contact us HERE.

LFoundry S.r.l., a member of the LASSIE-FP7 consortium, organised a workshop on 6 July 2016 at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. The event provided insights into the progress and challenges of the research on Large Area Solid State Intelligent Efficient Luminaries.  As the research is coming to its end, Rolando Ferrini of CSEM, LASSIE-FP7 coordinator, and his project fellow researchers of BASF, Fraunhofer IIS+IISB, VTT, REGENT LIGHTING, GAIKER and LFoundry have presented some of the partial results reached.  Lighting technologies trends, market outlook and research projects funding options have been presented by Elena Turco of AMIRES. Some key points mentioned:

• LASSIE-FP7 LED modules are set to reinforce competitive advantage of industries and create jobs.
• LASSIE-FP7 LEDs can be used for large areas luminaries, at low cost, having intelligence embedded, demonstrating high efficiency and quality, and being environmental.
• New technologies enabling large format optical sensors and individual optimization of sensor and readout circuitry processes are to be presented soon.

Click HERE to see the presentations.

LASSIE-FP7 has launched a design competition for students with the objective of exploring alternative and innovative ideas for applications and products as well as new design concepts for either professional or architectural luminaires that integrate its innovative modules. The details for participation and the main competition rules are described HERE. For PDF version click HERE.

Last week, Dr. Rudolf Frycek, CEO of AMIRES chaired a section ‘Innovative Financing Solutions for Scaling up and Large Scale Facilities‘ and led a round  table discussion ‘Strong and efficient system for open innovation’ at the Industrial Technologies 2016 Congress (IndTech2016). IndTech2016 is the largest networking conference in the field of new production technologies, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology and digitalisation in Europe.

The session ‘Innovative Financing Solutions for Scaling up and Large Scale Facilities’ identified the need for innovative financial engineering for SMEs, midcaps and large research infrastructures. The session recommended to lower the barrier between traditional grants (i.e. H2020) and loan and debt financing instruments (i.e. EIB, EIF). Continuity between these tools would facilitate faster industrialisation and scale up.

During the round table discussion on ‘Strong and efficient system for open innovation’ the following policy recommendations have been suggested:

• To re-gain trust in H2020 by decisive measures and transparency (e.g. stopping activities without fast/sufficient progress);
• To stop performance measurement of H2020 based on inputs (e.g. funds distributed) and start to measure outputs of EU projects (business impact).

EU and MS have been asked to coordinate better and faster implementation of the S3 strategies and to accelerate building unique but connected ecosystems/brain-belts throughout Europe. Wider public communication on positive societal impacts by industrial technologies and Industry 4.0 is also needed.

EffiBUILDING mission is to collect and share information in order to foster the launch of innovative products and prototypes and respond to the urgent needs of societal challenges such as energy and health of citizens. We aim to create the most important sharing platform in the world for products and prototypes for the energy efficiency of buildings. For this reason, database consultation is FREE of charge for registered members. They can also share their products or prototypes as well as compare them. Furthermore, we have tailored a membership (GOLD) for manufacturers who would like to promote their products to a global audience and enhance the impact of their marketing strategy. To become a member, you need only to fill in a short registration form. We are waiting for you to be part of the EffiBUILDING community!

We are proud that EffiBUILDING is attractive for all countries in the world. In the last three months the majority of the visitors of our innovative database of products and prototypes within the area of energy efficient products & solutions of buildings come from Brazil, United States, Russia, China, Canada, Australia and United Kingdom. This trend is caused mainly by the high number of incoming products from non-European countries such as USA, China and Japan. We are proud of this important result and we will expect to increase the visitors and the users from these countries. Check our news session on the website to be updated of products and prototypes. Manufactures are invited to take this unique opportunity, become our members and promote their products! New important changes are arriving for EffiBUILDING so stay tuned!

AMIRES co-organized a lobbying event on sensors in Brussels on 19 April 2016. European Sensor System Cluster (ESSC) initiated the event and Rudolf Fryček participated in the event as a Project Technical Advisor of the ESSC cluster. Challenges and roadmap for 2020 and beyond were presented. Presentations from the event are available only for cluster members who can contact their WG leaders. The European Sensor Systems Cluster (ESSC) identifies technical or non-technical challenges for (bio)chemical sensing and highlight opportunities resulting from nanotechnology, microsystems integration, advanced data evaluation, their manufacturing, commercialization and systemic integration. ESSC mobilizes a pan-European network, ready to advice, assist and execute the national or international measures leading to strengthened position of European Research and Innovation. If you would like to learn more about the ESSC, please contact Rudolf Fryček.

The Workshop on Impact of the Energy Efficient Buildings Public Private Partnership (EeB PPP) took place in Brussels on 18 and 19 April 2016. The event was organised jointly by the EC and the E2BA (Energy Efficient Buildings Association). It provided an opportunity to present projects, share results and highlight challenges. Projects that were presented included approaches to market assessment, performance monitoring, extensive demonstration activity, pilot production, training and education actions. Some projects are already demonstrating impactful results through patent applications, technology cost reduction and spin out set up. In order to maximise impact of the PPP, participation of all the stakeholders is fundamental from end users to industrial/ academic partners and public authorities. Other important factors include early stage development of commercialisation strategies and approaches for standardisation of products. Projects also need support at early stage to develop solid exploitation strategies that speed time to market. Timely and targeted regulation are also strong drivers of market uptake. TRIBUTE consortium was represented by Mr. Henri Obara from Schneider Electric, the Scientific Coordinator of TRIBUTE project. AMBASSADOR project was represented by Mr. Václav Smítka from AMIRES.

300 is the number of products in EffiBUILDING reached in this month. A relevant goal for this innovative initiative that provides an overview of the latest state of the art to professionals in design and refurbishment of buildings or anyone interested in selecting and comparing an appropriate product.  Important world key players in the efficient windows, facades systems, PV models and sensors are now present in the database with the latest products or prototypes offered in the market. This approach makes EffiBUILDING a marketing tool open 24h and connected with all the world for component producers. You can promote your product and get free access to the database by entering a product or prototype details here and you will receive login details by email (details must be complete and will be controlled by Product Manager). If you have any questions about EffiBUILDING, you are more than welcome to contact our Product Manager Fabrizio Perrotta.

On 8 September 2016 in Chambéry (France) and on 11 October 2016 in Lavrion (Greece), the AMBASSADOR project will organise its summer schools for energy managers. The topics to be presented will cover overall energy context, optimization strategies for buildings and districts dimension as well as the practical demonstration of the District Energy Management and Information System (DEMIS) developed within the framework of the project. More information including detailed agenda and pre-registration will be available during May 2016 here.

Furthermore, on 12 October 2016 in Lavrion (Greece), the project will also organise its final conference. The goal of the AMBASSADOR final conference will be to present different outputs that have been developed within the scope of the project (technical session) and to demonstrate their impacts in real conditions on one of the AMBASSADOR test sites in Greek Lavrion (test site visit). On top of that, the work with AMBASSADOR District Energy Management and Information System (DEMIS) will be showcased (demo session). Different business aspects of smart districts, smart grids and smart cities will be discussed following the research, studies and interviews ran during the course of the project (business session). Last but not least the AMBASSADOR team would like to share with its audience as well as invited guests its lessons learnt from this challenging four-year project (final discussion). More information including the conference agenda and registration will be continuously published here.

PI-SCALE (Bringing flexible organic electronics to pilot innovation scale) project website pi-scale.eu was developed in order to increase public awareness of and provide access to flexible OLED technology and the PI-SCALE project. The Home page, Videos and Contacts sections have been operational since mid-February 2016, while all other sections were published at the beginning of this week. You can find there basic information about the project, partners, ambition, and pilot line offering. If you would like to know more about PI-SCALE and the services the pilot line will provide, you can consult the answers to the frequently asked questions, or you can post your questions by using the Contact form. The website will be constantly maintained and updated with the latest information during the entire project duration. Stay tuned for the latest news.

WASCOP project website www.wascop.eu is full operational since this week. The aim of the website is to increase public awareness and to disseminate WASCOP project’s results. Website, which will be maintained during the whole course of the project, provides basic information about the project, consortium, dissemination activities as well as proposed testing sites. A relevant part is dedicated to the dissemination of the project results and outputs, including press releases, scientific publications, public deliverables and sister projects for clustering activities. A FAQ section is reserved for questions related to the project. Please visit the webpage and join our active WASCOP community!

AMIRES is looking for a Junior Project Manager of European R&D&I projects to reinforce its team in the Czech office in Prague. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of FP7 / H2020 project(s) in the area of new materials and for the AMIRES marketing activities. You can apply for this position till 13th April 2016. More details about the position are available here.

The PI-SCALE pilot line has already attracted a widespread interest in the OLED community only a month after the first press release has been published. The idea of an open access flexible OLED pilot line is particularly interesting for companies of all sizes who will have unique access to test and develop their specific applications at an industrial scale and thus achieve the product performance, cost, yield, efficiency and safety requirements that facilitate mass market adoption. If you are interested in discovering your options with flexible OLEDs, please check the project website, and if you would like to learn more about the pilot line, please check these articles in:

• OLED-info
• Printed Electronics World
• Electronics Weekly
• Optics.org
• AZO Optics

LASSIE-FP7 was part of CSEM’s First Business Day which was organized on 3 November 2015 at EPFL’s Microcity. Photos of LASSIE-FP7 booth are available in the Gallery section of the project website. CSEM has just finalized several videos which were shot at the event to make discover or re-discover its technologies and demonstrators. Learn more about LASSIE-FP7 project from Rolando Ferrini, LASSIE-FP7 coordinator, who introduces the project and its first conceptual demonstrator in the video titled “Light Management – Large-area solid-state intelligent efficient luminaires (LASSIE)”.

Ambitious ideas have been officially launched on 1 January 2016 and are expected to be realized by a team of 14 partners, including AMIRES, coming from 5 different countries. In the course of 36 months and with 14 million € of EU Grant contribution obtained through one of the calls under the Photonics Public Private Partnership (PPP) of HORIZON 2020 Programme, PI-SCALE project intends to establish a world-leading open access pilot line, based in Europe, for companies interested in the manufacture and system-level integration of flexible Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) into products. This will be achieved by bringing together the very best of the existing European infrastructure and know-how on flexible OLEDs from different locations into one pilot line. New and highly competitive OLED products will be introduced in the market, new jobs will be created and public perception of this innovative lighting technology will increase. To learn more, check PI-SCALE press release. More information will be also available soon on the project website. You can learn about the launch of other two advanced pilot lines in photonics field here.

This year’s edition of SPIE Photonics West conference in San Francisco was held from 13 to 18 February 2016. Every year over 20,000 people come to SPIE Photonics West to see, learn about, and purchase the latest devices, components, and systems that are enabling, and driving, today’s trends: state-of-the art medical technologies, the Internet of Things, smart manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, and more. MEDILIGHT project and its results were presented as part of the presentation titled “Wearable light management system for light stimulated healing of large area chronic wounds” on 13 February 2016 given by Rolando Ferrini from CSEM (Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique). The slides are available here.

AMIRES has participated in the series of industrial interviews with the top management of selected Neuchâtel-based companies (Switzerland) from the field of material production; micro-electronic & component manufacturing and energy consulting and identified their development needs and opportunities in the H2020 funded projects. Each cooperation profile includes short description, main competences, possible strategic projects and suitable H2020 calls for 2016-2017. The cooperation profiles include also direct contact to decision makers. Please download the profiles below:

• Alpes Lasers SA
• CICOR
• COMELEC SA
• Ismeca Europe Semiconductor SA
• NanoWorld AG
• PASAN SA
• PLANAIR SA
• SGX Sensortech SA
• SUSS MicroOptics SA
• Tissot Medical Research SA
• Fondation Suisse de Téléthèses (FST)
• Meyer Burger Research SA

As part of Health-2-Market project template for H2020 actions proposal was prepared. The annotated template aims to assist applicants to the Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Innovation Actions (IA) of Horizon 2020 Programme to better understand the requirements of the templates and better write innovation-related issues in the H2020 proposals. It highlights and emphasises the innovation elements that an excellent project application should contain. The ARIaT Template has been structured to guide project formulators in presenting information required especially by the criteria of Excellence (criterion 1) and Impact (criterion 2). The Appendices include an example of a business plan executive summary and an example of work packages addressing dissemination and exploitation of results, preparation of market authorisation and market access (related to health topic). You can download the template here. More information is available here.

The Commission launched a new initiative, “Seal of Excellence”, which aims to allow regions to recognise the quality label awarded to promising project proposals submitted under H2020 and promote their access to different funding sources like the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and other national or regional investment programmes. It is given to those projects which succeeded in passing all the selection and award criteria of the H2020 evaluation, but could not be funded under the available Call budget. In its pilot phase, the “Seal of Excellence” will first be given to proposals by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) submitted under the SME instrument of Horizon 2020. The action could then be extended to cover more areas of Horizon 2020. You can find more information on the website of the initiative.

The whole AMIRES team would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let’s the new year is successful one, full of happiness, positive minds and innovative ideas!

As part of Health-2-Market project a step-by-step guide explaining how to develop and implement an innovation strategy in R&D projects was prepared. It was written by 19 experts across the EU and it is designed to be relevant to everyone wishing to bring research results to market whatever the field of research, with or without previous experience in doing so. It covers the following topics: commercialisation routes, IP protection process, a business plan, a marketing strategy and a financing strategy. It also gives some insights about European legislation, standardisation and certification issues. The guide is available here.

AMBASSADOR M36 review meeting took place at the beginning of December 2015 in Lavrion, Greece. The consortium presented intensive work of the last 18 months aiming to develop the solution and use cases defined during its first period. Several practical demonstrations were performed including the work with the District Simulation Platform as well as the District Energy Management and Information System developed within the scope of the project. The Lavrion test site visit concluded the demonstration of the latest AMBASSADOR work. For the last one year of the project, the work will be especially oriented towards the work on three AMBASSADOR test sites (Lavrion, CEA-INES, BedZED) in order to deploy and validate the DEMIS and its effects on the energy / CO2 / costs efficiency. Several dissemination events will be organised including AMBASSADOR summer school and its final conference. More information on AMBASSADOR project is available on its website.

What can be the real outcome of the EU funded research and innovation in the Societal Challenges areas? Check here some examples of many successful results which are already integrated into commercially viable products, start-ups and services. Some of these products or services are already available in the market in 2015, some will be in the near future. The project received funding from the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) and the Active and Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP).

The second Horizon 2020 Work Programme covering the years 2016-2017 was published by the European Commission this month. Information on future funding opportunities under the different parts is available on the Participant Portal. The EC will invest almost €16 billion in research and innovation in the next two years. The programme will support a range of cross-cutting initiatives: the modernisation of Europe’s manufacturing industry (€1 billion); technologies and standards for automatic driving (over €100 million); the Internet of Things (€139 million) to address digitalisation of EU industries; Industry 2020 in the Circular Economy (€670 million) to develop strong and sustainable economies; and Smart and Sustainable Cities (€232 million) to better integrate environmental, transport, energy and digital networks in EU’s urban environments. You will find more information here.

LASSIE-FP7 consortium is happy to announce the release of its first conceptual demonstrator. It was firstly showcased on 26 September 2015 at CSEM Open Day event in Muttenz, Switzerland. You can learn more about the demo in the fact sheet which is available for download in Download section of the project website. Don’t miss to check the photos of the demo and LASSIE-FP7 stand at the event in the Gallery section of the project website.

AMIRES is looking for a Project Manager of European R&D&I projects to reinforce its team in the Czech office in Prague. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of H2020 projects in flexible electronics and photonics and will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals. You can apply for this position till 2nd October 2015. More details about the position are available here.

The newly created video of the EffiBUILDING database is giving you a unique opportunity to see online how to use the full version of the tool, to filter products by subcategories, technical characteristics or by country, to find contacts for products and prototypes as well as further more detailed information.

How to start using the database? You can take advantage of special offer and subscribe to the database or you can share your product or prototype with us and be part of EffiBUILDING with no costs for 6 months!

The seventh International Conference on Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, EuroNanoForum, took place from 10 to 12 June 2015 in Riga, Latvia. It was organized as part of the Latvian presidency of the Council of the EU. More information is available on the event’s website here. AMIRES CZ Managing Director, Lenka Bajarová, was invited as a speaker at the event. She gave a talk on „Trends in EU public funding of R&D“. You can have a look at her presentation here.

Euresearch organised a national conference on Horizon 2020 titled “Horizon 2020: We Can Do It!” on 16 June 2015 in Bern, Switzerland. In the afternoon parallel thematic session AMIRES CEO Rudolf Fryček gave a talk on experience in coaching of SMEs towards successful collaborative projects financed by the EU. You can check the presentation here. All presentations from the event are available for download here.

Summer temperatures welcomed on 6th May 2015 the ULTRAPLACAD partners in the wonderful setting of Villa San Saverio, Catania (Italy) for the kick-off meeting of the project. ULTRAPLACAD is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, dealing with the early diagnosis of cancer by non-invasive, affordable and innovative techniques. You can check the project’s press release here and the preliminary website here.

EffiBUILDING has already started promoting the most energy efficient products and prototypes. Our product manager is assisting many fairs around Europe in the fields of energy efficiency products for buildings and collecting new products&prototypes for the database. Check what EffiBUILDING can offer you in the new leaflet and the press release.

Don’t wait more and be part of EffiBUILDING!

We are extremely happy to inform you that AMIRES has launched EffiBUILDING, a database which contains information about novel materials and products as well as prototypes within the area of energy efficient products & solutions. EffiBUILDING target is to provide an overview of the latest state of the art and latest research results to professionals in design and refurbishment of buildings (e.g. architects, building technology designer, energy managers, producers, suppliers) or anybody interested in selecting and comparing an appropriate product. The database brings the market intelligence of energy efficient products and will serve also as a marketing tool for component producers. With EffiBUILDING you get also the overview about the recent prototypes and contacts to researchers developing them. Therefore it will be easier to share, discover, compare and exploit research and development results more efficiently.

At this first stage the database is specialized in efficient windows and facades systems, collecting data from public sources, fairs/conferences, private businesses, research organizations and universities. Check the current market situation and its trends!

PROMOTE YOUR PRODUCT AND GET FREE ACCESS!

All users who register a new product/prototype (not yet listed in EffiBUILDING) will enjoy FREE ACCESS to the database for one month. Please enter product/prototype details here and you will receive login details by email (details must be complete and will be controlled by product manager).

Everybody else will have an opportunity to choose one of our competitive fares.

PRICES AND TIME LIMITED SPECIAL OFFERS:

To get full access within the database, you can choose one of our competitive prices we currently offer:

• 3 months access for 249€, 125€ if you buy it before 30^th of June 2015.

• 1 year access for 499€, 249€ if you buy it before 30^th of June 2015.

Do not waste your time and click here to be part of EffiBUILDING!

Please do not hesitate to contact EffiBUILDING product manager Pello Azkarate for more information.

MEDILIGHT (Miniaturized smart system for light stimulation and monitoring of wound healing) consortium released its first press release in order to inform broad public about the launch of the project and its promising objectives. You can find basic information on the concept in there, too. The press release is available here.

AMBASSADOR and TRIBUTE teams will actively participate in the 5^th Workshop on the Impact of the Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB) PPP that is jointly organised by the European Commission with the support of the Energy Efficient Building Association on 27 and 28 April 2015. The objectives of the Workshop are to address innovation and exploitation issues in running EeB projects and explore potential for cross-project clustering. If you would like to learn more about the mentioned projects and their contribution to EeB you can check their websites: AMBASSADOR and TRIBUTE.

Euresearch Basel is organising an event titled “Horizon 2020: From basic research to novel technologies and materials” on 7 July 2015 in Basel, Switzerland to inform local researchers and companies about the EU-funding opportunities for new technologies. The topics of the upcoming ICT and NMP calls within the Industrial Leadership pillar of Horizon 2020 as well as the Future & Emerging technologies (FET) programme will be presented there. LASSIE-FP7 coordinator, Rolando Ferrini from CSEM, was invited to share his experience in writing and running an FP7 project. The event will be held at the University Hospital, Hebelstrasse 20, Basel and the language will be English. Participants from the local research institutions (University, FHNW, CSEM, FMI etc.) and from local companies are expected to be present. The event in organized in collaboration with iNET innovation networks. For registration (free of charge) and further information, click here.

LASSIE-FP7 was present at the 10th anniversary of LASER World of PHOTONICS CHINA, China’s Platform for the Photonics Community, which took place from 17 to 19 March 2015 in Shanghai New International Expo Centre. A total of 715 companies from 20 countries exhibited on an exhibition area of 36,960 square meters. In the three days, 40,291 industry professionals visited the trade fair. For more details you can check the event’s website. A combined roll-up of LASSIE-FP7 project and Swissphotonics (the Swiss national thematic network for photonics) was displaced at the fair. The photos are available in the Gallery section of the project website.

First scoping papers for 2016-2017 H2020 calls have been drafted following the recommendations from the H2020 Advisory Groups, Member states, stakeholders or open consultations. Even these scoping papers are working documents only, they are giving a flavour on how the upcoming calls and topics could look like. To learn more, you can check the following link.

MEDILIGHT project is a Horizon 2020 project in the area of smart system integration focused on a medical device for professional wound care which will use therapeutic effects of visible light. The consortium consists of 7 European partners and it is being coordinated by the Technical University Berlin (TUB). AMIRES is responsible for Project Management and Dissemination. Project started on 1 February 2015 and the kick-off meeting took place on 3 and 4 February 2015 in Berlin, Germany where all partners met to discuss and plan first steps and actions. You can already check the preliminary website with basic information on the project here.

AMIRES is looking for a Project Manager of European R&D&I projects to reinforce its team in the Czech office in Prague. The chosen candidate will be responsible for the overall administration and management support of FP7 / H2020 projects in health and / or energy efficiency domain and / or will also actively contribute to the preparation of other project proposals. You can apply for this position till 27th February 2015. More details about the position are available here.

In the issue II/2014 of SCOPE, eNewsletter on the 7^th Framework Programme being published by SOVVA (Slovak Organization for Research and Development Activities), you can find an interview with Rudolf Fryček, AMIRES CEO, about his experience from European R&D&I field and trends in this sector. With regard to research projects co-funded by the EU, recommendations on communication with a Project Officer and on smooth project reviews are given. The eNewsletter is available here (only in Slovak/Czech language) and the interview is on page 9 and 10.

AMBASSADOR project focused on developing an Autonomous Management System for Building and District Levels organised a Training for energy managers on 28 November 2014. The training was dedicated to topics such as overal energy context, optimization strategies for buildings and districts dimension. The practical demonstration of the District Energy Management and Information System (DEMIS), that is under development within the Framework of the project, was also performed. The feedback from the training will be also used for the preparation of the final project summer school (summer 2016). The presentation from the training is already available and you check it here, photos from the training are available in the Gallery section of the project’s website.

As the year 2014 is coming to an end and the year 2015 is on the horizon we would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let’s the new year is full of interesting opportunities, activities and innovative ideas!

UnivSEM (Universal Scanning Electron Microscope as a Multi-nano-analytical Tool) consortium released its second video. You can learn about project partners and their roles within the project in there. Check it out on AMIRES YouTube channel here. The first, introductory, video is available here.

Some of the iONE-FP7 publications are listed in the OpenAire Open Access repository and some of them are even available for free in full text! Despite the Open Access is fully voluntary in FP7, we all hope this will accelerate the progress of research of these perspective technologies, with a strong possibility to restore organ functionality (spinal cord injury in iONE-FP7 case). The link to Cordis-OpenAire is here.

On the occassion of the M24 meeting, the AMBASSADOR team met at the end of November in Chambéry, France (26 – 28 November 2014). During this three-day meeting, AMBASSADOR progress in individual WPs was presented followed by technical discussions in few dedicated workshops. The participants had also the occasion to visit the CEA-INES testing site and see, where some of the project’s demonstrations will take place in the following months. As every 12 months, the General Assembly members also met together to make some important decisions on the future AMBASSADOR progress as well as upcoming meeting (Eibar in May 2015, Brussels in November 2015). AMBASSADOR External Advisory Board members also took part in the meeting (Mr Pedersen from CENERGIA and Mr Normand from the City of Grenoble). The overall project progress was presented to them as well as the identified business cases and first results and outputs. The potential contribution of AMBASSADOR to the development of smart districts and smart cities was stressed several times.

On 28 November 2014 (the last day of the meeting), a training for energy managers organised by the AMBASSADOR team took place. The training was dedicated to topics such as overall energy context, optimization strategies for buildings and districts dimension. The practical demonstration of the District Energy Management and Information System (DEMIS), that is under development within the framework of the project, was also performed. The feedback from the training will be also used for the preparation of the final project summer school (summer 2016). Photos from the training are available on the project’s website in the Gallery section.

EU project LASSIE-FP7 focused on developing an innovative large-area SSL showed up on Italian regional TV: RAI TG3 Abruzzo (starting from minute 8:30) and Antenna2 (21 November, starting from minute 11:50) in connection with a workshop oraganised by LFoundry S.r.l.. The workshop took place on 20 and 21 November 2014 in Celano, Italy and was focused on regional cooperation and dissemination of the first LASSIE-FP7 results with the aim to promote industrial development in Abruzzo region. Local innovative companies as well as CSEM (Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology) and Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (FhG IIS) introduced their activities during the first day of the event. The second day was focused on Horizon 2020 programme and LASSIE-FP7 project. More information as well as photos from the event can be found on the project website.

The workshop focused on Large-area Solid State Lighting (SSL) took place on 30 October 2014 in Pantheon premises in Basel and was co-organised by Swissphotonics (the Swiss national thematic network for photonics) and the Swiss National Laboratory for Solid State Lighting (SSSL) together with LASSIE-FP7 project and CSEM (the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology). It was a day full of interesting topics and contributions. Project LASSIE-FP7 was presented by Dr. Rolando Ferrini, project coordinator. EPIC report covering the event is to be found here. The presentations are available here and photos in Gallery section of LASSIE-FP7 website.

UnivSEM consortium prepared a short video in which the project coordinator, Jaroslav Jiruše from Tescan, a.s., introduces the project, its goal and the whole consortium. You can watch it on the home page of UnivSEM project on www.univsem.eu and on AMIRES YouTube channel here.

AMIRES is looking for a Product Manager to reinforce its team in the Czech office in Prague. The chosen candidate will be completely responsible for preparation, finalization and further business development of an innovative solutions’ database in energy efficient buildings domain.  You can apply for this position till November 21st 2014. More details about the position are available here.

You can now follow us also on YouTube channel. Check the videos about AMBASSADOR and LASSIE-FP7 projects where you can meet the project coordinators and Work Package Leaders or other consortium members. A short movie about the UnivSEM FP7 project is also available on the channel. Enjoy the videos!

LASSIE-FP7 consortium prepared during its M6 meeting in Erlangen an informative video about the project. The project’s vision and building blocks are presented there with inputs from project’s partners. You can watch it on the home page of LASSIE-FP7 project on www.lassie-fp7.eu and on AMIRES YouTube channel here (full version) and here (short version).

Starting 5 of August 2014, the AMIRES s.r.o. domicile is at Evropská 115, 160 00 Prague 6 where the company office is located. It means that the legal address at Golfová 938/13, Prague 10 is not valid any more.

The European Commission adopted on 22 July 2014 a revised Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015. The parts related to 2015 (topics, dates, budget) have been updated. The revised Work Programme is available on the Participant Portal here. Based on this change we have updated our overview of the H2020 2014-2015 calls deadlines where AMIRES offers support. Please, do not hesitate to contact us to make your proposal preparation easier for you.

TRIBUTE project initiated cooperation with two other European projects that participated in the same FP7 call and were selected to be funded from the FP7 programme. A teleconference with representatives of Energy in Time (Simulation based control for Energy Efficiency operation and maintenance), PERFORMER (Portable, Exhaustive, Reliable, Flexible and Optimized approach to Monitoring and Evaluation of building energy performance) and TRIBUTE projects took place in July 2014. They will meet personally for the first time at a workshop focused on clustering activities among European projects in the field of Energy efficient buildings. The workshop will be organized during the Sustainable Places 2014 conference taking place from 1 to 3 October 2014 in Nice, France.

LASSIE-FP7 (Large Area Solid State Intelligent Efficient luminaires) project website www.lassie-fp7.eu has been set up in order to increase public awareness of the project, research progress in Solid State Lighting field and to disseminate project’s results. Provisional website with basic information on the project had been operational already from the start of the project, January 2014. The final version of the website was launched this week. It will be actively maintained during the whole course of the project. You can find basic information on the project and consortium there and public deliverables and other materials are available for download. The Frequently Asked Questions section is developed in order to answer possible questions related to LASSIE-FP7 project and its goals and make the replies publicly available on the website.

Are you confused with all the HORIZON 2020 deadlines? This overview will help you to find your way. It’s the second part of the H2020 2014-2015 calls overview where AMIRES offers support (the first part with the deadlines till June 2014 is available here). It can help you to plan the project proposal preparation and not to miss your deadline. If you would like us to make the proposal writing easier for you, please, do not hesitate to contact us or check our consulting models!

A microscope, unique even by world standards, is one of the outcomes of the scientific research at CEITEC (Central European Institute of Technology) BUT (Brno University of Technology), which also serves as an example of how to access European funds. Thanks to well-chosen instruments and technology acquired through the targeted support of the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) for large infrastructures and approved by the Czech government, they have been able to obtain and implement research projects awarded directly by the European Commission. The result of the synergy of national and European grant policy is exemplified by the participation of CEITEC BUT scientists in the FP7 scientific research project UnivSEM. A press release on this topic was issued and is available here. The information was electronically published also in French and is to be found here. You can also check a spot on Brno TV about CEITEC BUT and UnivSEM (in Czech) here.

Industrial Technologies conference took place from 9 to 11 April 2014 in Athens, Greece in Megaron Conference Centre under the Greek Presidency of the Council of the EU. More than 1300 people from over 60 countries participated in the event.

As a part of the conference the IndustryTech 2014 exhibition was held where three projects, which AMIRES participates in, were promoted: AMBASSADOR, TRIBUTE and UnivSEM project. At a joint booth of AMBASSADOR and TRIBUTE projects Schneider Electric and NXP sensors measuring and evaluating temperature, humidity and light were exhibited. The stand was a success as it was chosen to be among 10 finalists for the most innovative exhibitor award. UnivSEM booth presented the stage of TESCAN microscope which is compatible with several analytical tools that can be integrated into it. Projects’ fact sheets and other materials were distributed there.

On 10 April AMIRES organised together with the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) a small apero in front of the booths focused on industrially-driven projects with great impact stressing the importance of Swiss participation in European research projects. Swiss NCP for ICT and NMP, Ms Marion Tobler, gave an introduction speech with up-to-date information on Swiss position towards Horizon2020 programme. Representatives of all three projects briefly introduced their projects: Alfredo Samperio, AMBASSADORS’s coordinator and Programme Manager for Strategy and Technology Department of Schneider Electric; Jaroslav Klíma, CEO of TESCAN ORSAY HOLDING, a.s., a company coordinating UnivSEM project; and Václav Smítka, Project Manager of TRIBUTE project.

As part of the UnivSEM project, TESCAN ORSAY HOLDING, a multinational company experienced in charged particle optics and WITec, a distinguished German specialist in Raman and scanning probe microscopy, successfully introduced a correlative microscopy technique which combines electron microscopy with Raman microscopy. The resulting RISE (Raman Imaging and Scanning Electron) Microscopy technique enables for the first time ultra-structural and chemical imaging with one microscope. The press release which was published on the occasion of the product launch of RISE is available here.

For the improvement of the public awareness of the project TRIBUTE a dedicated website www.tribute-fp7.eu was created. Content of the webpage, which will be maintained during the whole course of the project, provides basic information on project´s purpose, involved partners as well as proposed testing sites. Significant part is dedicated to the dissemination of the project results and outputs, including press releases, scientific publications and public deliverables. You can watch a TV spot in French shot during the first day of the kick-off meeting in La Rochelle, France. Besides the basic information about the project and the consortium, the video includes interviews with Project Coordinator Emmanuel Onillon (CSEM) and Scientific Coordinator Henri Obara (Schneider Electric) as well as with the representative of the European Commission – Project Officer Claudia Boldrini. The video can be viewed in the section Press releases.

Following the Nice workshop that took place during the ICT for Sustainable Places 2013 conference, where AMBASSADOR and RESILIENT FP7 projects’ teams met for the first time, the cooperation of both the projects has been continuing this time by organisation of a meeting in Paris in the middle of February. The goal of the meeting was to have two parallel workshops in the morning discussing together topics that are closely related to both the projects – energy optimization and district simulation. In the afternoon a wrap-up session took place in order to summarize the activities from the morning workshops and to plan next steps for the future cooperation. It was agreed that publications on the optimization topic will be exchanged between the teams and as a next step a common paper on different energy optimization approaches on district level will be prepared. For the district simulation an overview of component models will be performed and work on a common use case will be started. The recommendation for the best tool for district simulation for future projects will be also targeted as a final output of the cooperation between the two projects. More information on AMBASSADOR is available here, more information on RESILIENT here.

LASSIE-FP7 (Large Area Solid State Intelligent Efficient luminaires) is a three-year FP7 project which officially started on 1 January 2014 and develops an innovative LED-based module for professional and architectural lighting. It addresses all the limitations of today´s SSL modules and will offer an alternative to the OLED technology. The kick-off meeting of the project took place on 30 and 31 January 2014 in Basel, Switzerland and was organized by the project’s coordinator, Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM). Project’s partners came together to discuss the first tasks of the project and the first steps to be taken. A consortium of 8 partners represents industrial (Regent Beleuchtungskörper AG, BASF Schweiz AG, Marsica Innovation & Technology S.r.l., AMIRES) and R&D sector (CSEM, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus VTT, Fundacion GAIKER). You can learn more about the project in the first press release (here) which was published after the meeting. You can also check the provisional project’s webpage with the basic information at www.lassie-fp7.eu.

On 9th January 2014 Swiss Radio and Television broadcasting company SRF broadcast a report about the project FLUIDGLASS as a part of its regular show Einstein. The full video can be found here.

The midterm review of UnivSEM (Universal Scanning Electron Microscope as a Multi-nano-analytical Tool) project that evaluated the first 18 months of the project took place in Thun, Switzerland from 12 to 13 November 2013. EC Project Officer together with the assigned Project Technical Advisor was present. The first integration of SEM chambers and vacuum-operated CRM (Confocal Raman Microscopy) shows unprecedented results of the same sample spot image, with optical resolution of 360 nm, which is well beyond the foreseen result (500 nm). This part of the tool is now ready to perform several characterization tests, which will lead to optimization of the settings. Consequently, hardware and software integration of all techniques should provide the universal nano-analytical tool for multipurpose use. The expected socio-economic impact of the resulting tool is very high due to having one single tool allowing researchers and quality control employees capabilities, which were recently possible only by several devices. This will be particularly appreciated for forensic, geological and biological applications, but also in developing markets like organic or hybrid (opto-) electronics (e.g. OLEDs, OPVs). You can find more about UnivSEM project and the meeting on www.univsem.eu.

On 3 and 4 October 2013 FLUIDGLASS kick-off meeting took place in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The meeting organized by University of Lichtenstein was dedicated to the presentation of all partners and also to the introduction of the main parts of the project focused on Solar Thermal Facades with Adjustable Transparency. It was also the first opportunity where the whole consortium came together to start the discussion about the first tasks of the FLUIDGLASS project. Since FLUIDGLASS is the very first project coordinated by one of the Liechtenstein institutions, a lot of attention was attracted among both industrial and general public in Liechtenstein. This was also supported by a strong PR campaign prepared by the University of Liechtenstein. Following this campaign a number of press releases were published in various newspapers and magazines as well as short spot in a local TV station. All of these articles can be found in the section “Press releases” on the project’s new webpage www.fluidglass.eu which was launched in November.

AMIRES is a proud partner of FLUIDGLASS FP7 project that was launched on September 1st 2013 and will last for four years until August 2017. The project develops a new and innovative concept for multifunctional solar thermal glass façades systems. The FLUIDGLASS approach turns passive glass façades into active transparent solar collectors while controlling the energy flow through the building envelope at the same time. FLUIDGLASS will bring a significant cost advantage compared to existing solutions; it will increase the thermal performance of the whole building resulting in energy savings potential of 50%-70% for retrofitting and 20%-30% for new low energy buildings while the comfort for the user will be significantly improved at the same time. The consortium led by the University of Lichtenstein brings together partners experienced in glass architecture, building simulation and energy management but also in experimental testing, HVAC systems, manufacturing of glazing units and construction of façades. You can learn more about the project on www.fluidglass.eu.

AMIRES is a proud partner of FP7 project AMBASSADOR. The purpose of AMBASSADOR project (Autonomous Management System Developed for Building and District levels) is to study, develop and experiment systems and tools that will aim at optimising the energy usage in the perimeter of a district by managing the energy flows, predicting and mastering energy consumption and energy production. The overall goal is to define and experiment a system that optimises the cost of energy in a district, the cost being expressed in Primary Energy, CO₂ or €. The project will investigate energy efficiency both at a building level and at a district level. A number of mechanisms and technical systems will be studied both at buildings and district level for the creation of such a system. The major part of results should be usable for transfer to development teams at the end of the project. A consortium of 15 partners representing both the industrial (e.g. CISCO, ZIGOR, Leclanché, D’Appolonia) and R&D (e.g. CSEM, CEA-INES or NTUA) sector, has been working to reach ambitious AMBASSADOR goals, under the leadership of Schneider Electric Industries. The results will be validated on three testing sites in France, Greece and UK. More information can be found on the webpage of the project (under AMIRES responsibility) ambassador-fp7.eu.