TINKER WEBSITE LAUNCH

It is official! TINKER website has been launched!

Visit https://www.project-tinker.eu/ and take the journey with us. We will keep you updated about the project´s progress and latest news.
So keep your eyes open.

This is just a start!

AMIRES looking for new team member!

We are proud of the work we do, and our success is primarily the result of our passionate team of dedicated people. To support our growth, we are looking for highly motivated people to join our team in Prague for a position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects.

If you are interested in new technologies, great at communication, familiar with European R&D&I funding, have analytical mind set and organizational skills and like challenges, then our job proposal is for you. Read HERE for more.

Good News for the EU and Beyond

The Commission welcomes the political agreement between the European Parliament and the Council on Horizon Europe, the largest transnational programme ever supporting research and innovation. The new EU research and innovation programme will have a budget of around €95.5 billion for 2021-2027 (current prices). This includes €5.4 billion (current prices) from NextGenerationEU to boost our recovery and make the EU more resilient for the future, as well as an additional reinforcement of €4.5 billion (current prices). This represents a 30% increase vis-à-vis the current research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020 (comparing Horizon Europe against Horizon 2020 for EU27, in constant prices) and makes it the most ambitious research and innovation programme in the world.

This is a big support for researchers and SMEs.

The world of “Photonics for Medical devices”

Last Wednesday December8, 2020 the Webinar on Photonics for Medical Devices organized by EPIC gathered more than 20 organisations, including companies, research organisations and clinical institutions, which talk and discussed about opportunities in medical devices utilizing photonics. Within those companies, AMIRES was represented by our Health-Life Sciences project manager, Mariana Pacheco Blanco. Moreover, MedPhab pilot line was also presented, in which Mariana acts as project manager.
We, at AMIRES are very glad to be part of such an essential and powerful value chain impacting European business and healthcare products, improving lives!

You can see this event HERE

Flexible Electronics Report

There are over 200 projects that deal with flexible electronics within the H2020 programme. The most active organisations are the RTOs and the Higher Education Institutions such as Fraunhofer, VTT, CEA, IMEC, TNO, CNRS, Cambridge, Oxford, EPF Laussane and Imperial College, among others.

Discover more in-depth analysis of flexible electronics within the Horiozon 2020 Programme, created by John Kennedy Mwangi, AMIRES. The analysis includes:

NUMBER OF PROJECTS OVER THE YEARS
DISTRIBUTION OF PROJECTS AMONG THE FUNDING INSTRUMENTS
PROJECT RANKING IN TERMS OF FUNDING
THE KEY PERFORMERS
THE DOMINANT PRIVATE FOR PROFIT ENTITIES
NUMBER OF PROJECTS PER COUNTRY

Full report HERE

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SmartEEs2 Webinar takeaways

Can flexible and wearable technologies innovate your products and services? How to get technical, business and financial support for testing it?

On December 4, 2020, AMIRES organized a webinar in the framework of the SmartEEs2 project. This webinar was specifically aimed at informing companies in Central Europe about possibilities to participate in the open calls for Application Experiments.

Within SmartEEs2 five Calls for Application Experiments are opened inviting interested companies to submit their application experiment proposals. Selected Application Experiments will demonstrate the transfer of flexible and wearable electronics technologies into new products / series of products, processes, business models and business opportunities. The next, already third, Call for Application Experiments is open until the 15^th of January 2021.

At the workshop, participants were informed about the SmartEEs2 project and its objectives and how to submit a proposal in the Call for Application Experiments. The webinar also included two examples of companies that were supported through the first SmartEEs project.

Webinar presentations

Presentation title	Speaker
Introduction to the workshop	Michael ten Donkelaar, AMIRES
Introduction to SmartEEs2	Rudolf Fryček, AMIRES
Company testimonial 1 – ESYST	Jaroslav Sochor, ESYST, Czech Republic
Company testimonial 2 – IDEA	Gianluca Di Buo, IDEA, Italy
SmartEEs2 registration process	Minja Maric, AMIRES

Webinar recordings

Upcoming Regenerative Medicine workshop…stay tuned

Due to the combination of the following: end of the year duties, the upcoming Christmas break and the difficult time of the sanitary situation, we need to postpone this event for Spring 2021. We apologize for the change of plans, however we want to assure you a high-quality experience through the newest trends in Regenerative Medicine. We thank you for your understanding and please stay tuned!

Are you involved in the R&D of Regenerative medicine products or technologies? Or you are a clinician who is interested in knowing more about the new trends, and establish new contacts or starting new collaborations? Then, register HERE for the “Virtual Regenerative medicine workshop: from lab to clinic” organized by CSEM and AMIRES in the frame of OrganTrans EU funded project and find out more about incredible technology, modern trends, and interests of the key players in this field. Establish your new network for future collaborations!

MedPhab at virtual medical tech exhibition COMPAMED

MedPhab shared a booth with three other European Photonics-based Manufacturing Pilot Lines during virtual COMPAMED. HERE people could visit the virtual booth coordinated by MedPhab partner, EPIC. More than 500 people had viewed what MedPhab offers, through the recorded presentation of Ralph Liedert from VTT, which you can see HERE as part of the IVAM Session: Laser and Photonics Applications. In addition, Anja Haase from MedPhab partner, JOANNEUM RESEARCH, shared with the audience their technology in micro- and nano imprint lithography during the microfluidics session of the virtual COMPAMED HIGH-TECH FORUM 2020. Watch her presentation HERE

Next generation of renewable energy technology! CONDOR project launched

A new Horizon2020 project CONDOR (COmbined suN-Driven Oxidation and CO2 Reduction for renewable energy storage) was launched on 1st November 2020. The main project’s objective is developing a modular device for the production of fuels by using water and carbon dioxide as feedstock and sunlight as the sole energy source.
Read more information about the aim and consortium that AMIRES is also part of HERE.

MANUELA project’s Open Call has been launched’

MANUELA project’s General Assembly meeting is taking place today and marks the launching of an Open Call for Business Development Cases. This is a unique opportunity for European companies to access the top-notch equipment and services of this Metal Additive Manufacturing Pilot Line, in order to develop and test novel parts, components or products exploiting the benefits of metal AM.

The Open Call will have two cut-off dates on 31st March and 30th September after which the best proposals for Business Development Cases will be selected. You can find all the details on MANUELA’s website here – https://manuela-project.eu/open-call/ – or you can contact its helpdesk at helpdesk@manuela-project.eu.

The Call is open for companies of any size and from any industry. In case you are interested we strongly encourage you to check the technical feasibility of your idea with us prior to submitting a proposal.

SmartEEs Tuned Another Application Experiment to Bring Lighting Comfort With a Healthier Solution

ESYST, a Czech-based supplier for interior lighting, industrial lighting and public lighting, submitted a proposal to SmartEEs project for an application experiment aiming to bring smart light solutions.

There were two main problems: lack of intelligent lighting luminaires and low lighting comfort resulting in unhealthy solutions for lighting interiors, which disturb hormone production and thus prevent an undisturbed circadian rhythm. SmartEEs solution, with the service provider – Fraunhofer FEP was developing human-centric light by LED/OLED combination. Development of esthetically pleasing smart lights, utilizing both LED and OLED for their emission capabilities of required wavelengths. By combining two separate tuneable-white modules, the color temperature range of emitted light was expanded, which improves quality over standard human-centric lights. By adding smart control on top the resulting lights should offer a wide range of applications and features such as usage statistics which may lead to more effective use in the future and thus lower power consumption. AMIRES, as a SmartEEs business provider for this case, identified growth potentials by analyzing market segments and further business opportunities throughout the business coaching sessions.

Watch ESYST’s story to bring lighting comfort and healthier solutions to life with SmartEEs support.

MARVEL project has kicked-off!

On November 5^th – 6^th, 2020 MARVEL project was officially kicked-off via online conferencing service where all partners from 6 organizations participated. The project is coordinated by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) SCITEC-CNR, with the participation of ITM-CNR and other 5 European partners from different countries: Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (Italy), Cardiocentro Ticino Foundation (Switzerland), Paperdrop Diagnostics (Spain), HansaBioMed Life Sciences (Estonia) and Amires (Czech Republic).
MARVEL project, whose full name is “Evolving reversible iMmunocapture by membrane sensing peptides: towARds scalable extracellular VEsicLes isolation” – will develop new diagnostic and therapeutic tools using extracellular vesicles. This innovative technology can help to detect bladder cancer and provide therapeutic treatment of cardiovascular diseases, which are among leading causes of deaths in the world nowadays.
Extracellular vesicles are membranous particles that are released from a cell. They are found in biological fluids such as blood and urine and they are involved in communication between cells. Extracellular vesicles act as signalling “vehicles” in both physiological and pathological mechanisms. These characteristics make them fundamental in the development of innovative methods in diagnostics, therapy, and industrial biomedical applications. Therefore, MARVEL’s goal is to upgrade the existing technology for reversible extracellular vesicles isolation and move beyond the analytical scale. This is crucial for the manufacturing scale production of extracellular vesicles and further their deployment in cardiac repair and non-invasive diagnosis of bladder cancer.

More information will be shortly available at www.marvel-fet.eu

Next generation of renewable energy technology: CONDOR

The next generation of innovative renewable energy system is ahead of us thanks to the CONDOR project (COmbined suN-Driven Oxidation and CO2 Reduction for renewable energy storage) launched officially on 09th of October 2020. Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the project will address the two big scientific challenges related to the conversion of sunlight into fuels and mitigation of anthropogenic climate change.

CONDOR aims at developing a modular device for the production of fuels by using water and carbon dioxide as feedstock and sunlight as the sole energy source. The projects will develop a photosynthetic device made of two compartments: (a) a photoelectrochemical cell that splits water and CO2 and generates oxygen and syngas, a mixture of H2 and CO; (b) a (photo)reactor that converts syngas into methanol and dimethylether, via bi-functional heterogeneous catalysts. The final target is a full photosynthetic device with 8% solar-to-syngas and 6% solar-to-DME efficiencies with three-months continuous outdoor operation. CONDOR has the ambition to become a basis for the next generation of non-fossil fuel production technologies as it proposes an innovative approach that brings both techno-economic (cost reduction, higher efficiency, lower technological and manufacturing complexity) and environmental (reduced CO2 emission, reduced energy for production, reduced usage of rare materials) advantages in comparison to current solutions for renewable production of methanol and dimethylether.

The project’s innovation potential in terms of scientific and engineering activities is possible by combining the interdisciplinary approach, complementary competences and international collaboration. Coordinated by the University of Bologna and with AMIRES participation, the CONDOR consortium is unifying well reputed technology development teams and key industrial partners, specialised in nanomaterials preparation and characterisation by operando microscopy and spectroscopy, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, photochemistry/photoelectrochemistry, PEC engineering and assessment of the environmental and socio-economic impact of the proposed technology, including life cycle assessment.

Additional information about the CONDOR project can be found at: https://condor-h2020.eu/

TINKER’s first PRESS RELEASE

The H2020 TINKER project bringing 15 partners from 8 EU countries under its roof has started on the 1st October 2020 and HERE is the first project’s Press Release.

AMIRES looking for new team member!

We are proud of the work we do, and our success is primarily the result of our passionate team of dedicated people. To support our growth, we are looking for highly motivated people to join our team in Prague for a position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects.

If you are interested in new technologies, great at communication, familiar with European R&D&I funding, have analytical mind set and organizational skills and like challenges, then our job proposal is for you. Read HERE for more.

2021 COMMISSION WORK PROGRAMME

Every year, the European Commission adopts a work programme which sets out its key initiatives for the year ahead.It contains new legislative initiatives across all six headline ambitions:

A European Green Deal
A Europe fit for the digital age
An economy that works for people
A stronger Europe in the world
Promoting our European way of life
A new push for European democracy

A full list of the 44 new policy objectives under the six headline ambitions are set out in Annex 1 of the 2021 work programme.

AMIRES IS AMONG WINNERS OF EU DATHATHON 2020

The winners of the EU Datathon 2020 were announced on 15th October on the Digital event during the European Week of Regions and Cities and AMIRES is proud to be among them.

EU Datathon is an annual open data competition organized by the Publications Office of the EU since 2017. The main goal is to stimulate innovation and transform the interaction between citizens and the EU administration. There were four categories according to the challenge to be addressed:

A European Green Deal (Challenge 1),
An economy that works for people (Challenge 2),
A new push for European democracy (Challenge 3)
and a Europe fit for the digital age (Challenge 4).

Our team, consists of John Kennedy Mwangi, Rudolf Fryček, Roman Pašek and Lenka Bajarova, submitted the proposal for the competition by May 3, 2020, for the CHALLENGE 2 and we were selected as one of the 12 finalists from among 121 proposals on May 29th, 2020. Over the following months, we developed the EU4Regions platform and presented it on 15th October on the Digital event during the European Week of Regions and Cities.
Our platform EU4Regions emerged number 2 in challenge 2. EU4Region, the application created by AMIRES helps identify unknown patterns, causal relations and changes resulting from the injection of EU funds in various regions. It maps the state of cohesiveness and inclusion of EU regions through funding. The open data from EU CORDIS EU, RegioEvaluation and Eurostat were used to determine whether EU funding is helping our regions. The app should help policymakers adjust financial support. We are grateful to be part of creating new value for citizens through innovation and promoting the use of open data.

Visit our virtual stand addressing Cohesion & cooperation here or watch our final speech below.

Proposals for EU Missions for a Greener, Healthier and More Resilient Europe

High-level independent experts presented their proposals to the European Commission for possible EU missions on some of our most pressing societal challenges. By 2030, the proposed missions aim to find solutions for saving more lives from cancer, making Europe climate resilient, restoring our ocean and waters, achieving 100 climate-neutral cities, and ensuring 75% of soils are healthy.

The five mission proposals submitted by the Mission Boards, the independent experts advising the Commission, are:

Conquering Cancer: Mission Possible. Targets by 2030: more than 3 million lives saved, living longer and better: achieve a thorough understanding of cancer, prevent what is preventable, optimise diagnosis and treatment, support the quality of life of all people exposed to cancer, and ensure equitable access to the above across Europe.
A Climate Resilient Europe – Prepare Europe for climate disruptions and accelerate the transformation to a climate resilient and just Europe by 2030. Targets by 2030: prepare Europe to deal with climate disruptions, accelerate the transition to a healthy and prosperous future within safe planetary boundaries, and scale up solutions for resilience that will trigger transformations in society.
Mission Starfish 2030: Restore our Ocean and Waters. Targets by 2030: filling the knowledge and emotional gap, regenerating marine and freshwater ecosystems, zero pollution, decarbonising the blue economy, and revamping governance. These mutually supportive objectives will enable the regeneration of the water cycle as a whole.
100 Climate-Neutral Cities by 2030 – by and for the citizens. Targets by 2030: support, promote and showcase 100 European cities in their systemic transformation to climate neutrality by 2030 and turn these cities into innovation hubs for all cities, benefitting quality of life and sustainability in Europe.
Caring for Soil is Caring for Life. Targets by 2030: at least 75% of soils in the EU are healthy for food, people, nature and climate. The proposed mission combines research and innovation, education and training, investments and the demonstration of good practices using “Living labs” (experiments and innovation in a laboratory on the ground) and “Lighthouses” (places to showcase good practices).

The Commission will announce its final selected missions at the end of 2020. The missions will launch in 2021 as part of Horizon Europe, the next EU research and innovation programme.
More information HERE.

Photonics Digital Innovation Hub Secures €19 Million to Boost SME Growth and Ensure Europe’s Global Competitiveness

PhotonHub Europe – a new pan-European photonics digital innovation hub –has been awarded €19 million investment from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme. AMIRES, as a business support provider, together with other partner organizations will help European SMEs and mid-caps become highly competitive digital businesses through the faster and smarter deployment of photonics-based technologies, directly creating over 1.000 new high-tech EU jobs and nearly €1 billion in new revenues and venture capital by 2025.

PhotonHub will provide a broad range of services and capabilities covering:
•   training and upskilling supports
•   “test before invest” innovation support
•   supports to find investment

PhotonHub Europe will commence operations from early 2021 and will be operating a continuous open call for companies to apply for its support services. Applications for support will be facilitated online through the PhotonHub website located at www.photonhub.eu.

Read first PhotonHub Europe press release highlighting the essence of photonics in traditional industrial base HERE

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From flexible plastic and paper surfaces and membranes to sustainable ecosystem

On 21^st of October 2020, over 50 participants joined virtually the workshop on Applications and Industrialisation of Functional Polymer Films, Paper and Membranes. The event was organized jointly by Amires and Fraunhofer-FEP, in cooperation with the Technology Centre CAS, in the framework of FlexFunction2Sustian project. With a wealth of expertise and knowledge-sharing, the workshop provided the ideal opportunity for the attendants to digitally network, to exchange ideas on the latest developments and emerging trends in the fields of sustainable packaging and smart plastic films.

The virtual event was opened by Rudolf Frycek, CEO of Amires, and John Fahlteich, Group Leader at the Division: Plasma Technology at Fraunhofer-FEP and also coordinator of FlexFunction2Sustian project. The topic on sustainable and smart packaging was presented by the speakers Jakub Pedzinski (Capri Sun), Marlos Silva (Sonae MC), Wolfgang Lohwasser (AMCOR Flexibles). They shared interesting insights on the development of the industry by addressing the new challenges for reducing the environmental impact of the packaging and undertaken approaches to move to a more “circular” world. High-impact future innovative solutions for smart plastic films for design, optics and security were presented by Jaakko Raukola (ISCENT), Rafael Michalczuk (Swarovski), Tomáš Těthal (IQ Structures), Stephan Trassl (Hueck Folien) and André Kalio (Schreiner Group). Apart from the company profile, each speaker provided information on the in-house machines and process developments. Examples for the application of smart plastic films as well as thriving innovations and ideas for the products of tomorrow were also provided during the presentations. In addition, Alexander Schmidt (Sonnenberg Harrison Partners mbB) presented an overview of the intellectual property landscape of the nanofunctionalised surfaces.

At the end, John Fahlteich had the pleasure to introduce the new Horizon 2020 funded project FlexFunction2Sustain as the latest European initiative for enabling novel solutions and products for plastic and paper-based flexible materials and films. Apart from providing more details on the concept of the Open Innovation Test Bed, he informed the participants about the future possibilities and EU support offered for innovative SMEs and industries in the framework of the project. Learn more about FlexFunction2Sustain here.

The workshop represented a perfect opportunity to learn about the latest developments and industrial applications in the field of sustainable packaging and smart plastic films and possibilities to integrate polymer films, paper and membranes in existing or new products. With the motivation from speakers and a chance to interact with key industry stakeholders, it was truly an event to remember. Stay tuned for the next events organised in the framework of FlexFunction2Sustian project by checking the project website.

Join the last in OASIS series of webinars!

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases providing support to companies in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites.

Join the third and last in our series of webinars on 10th November 2020, 1 p.m. CEST.

During this webmeeting, you will learn why and how to apply to this unique opportunity to benefit from the European Commission’s support through the OASIS project. Examples from Airbus and Pleione Energy will show what kind of projects are feasible.

This webmeeting will provide you information about:

the Horizon 2020 project OASIS
the open call for companies and institutions
the technologies that you can access through the pilot-lines
the business services provided by OASIS to boost your innovation
showcases already implemented to give you an impression of what can be achieved on the technological side with the support of the OASIS consortium.

You can register for the event here – LINK

OrganTrans and RegenHU as part of the current and Future Perspectives on 3D Bioprinting

OrganTrans and the importance of its Consortium as developer of 3D printing technologies was highlighted by Simon Mackenzie, CEO of RegenHU and OrganTrans partner in the interview with Next Big Innovation Labs® in India. See the complete intereview here (min. 15 OrganTrans was mentioned)

TINKER Kick-off meeting

On October 14-15th, 2020, TINKER project was officially kicked-off via online meeting and coordinated by scientist Leo Schranzhofer at PROFACTOR GmbH with AMIRES participation.

In the period of 3 years, starting from 1st of October 2020, European Union´s H2020 funded TINKER project is set to develop a new reliable, accurate, functional, cost- and resource efficient pathway for RADAR and LIDAR sensor package fabrication, using “key enabling technologies, especially inkjet printing and nanoimprint llithography”. The main aim is to establish the TINKER platform based on Additive Manufacturing and Fabrication of RADAR and LIDAR sensors packages as use cases.

The TINKER consortium consists of 10 the most excellent industrial companies, 3 research specialists, one consultancy and a service association, who are major players in the field of semiconductor and microelectronic manufacturing, as well as in the fields of material and process development and industrial fields applying or interested in applying AM for their needs.

More information will be shortly available at www.project-tinker.eu.

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MARVEL: the beginning!

The innovative project starts at the beginning of November 2020! MARVEL project – by the full name “Evolving reversible iMmunocapture by membrane sensing peptides: towARds scalable extracellular VEsicLes isolation” – was selected among 28 proposals and received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It offers new diagnostic and therapeutic tools using extracellular vesicles. The proposed technology can help to detect bladder cancer and provide therapeutic treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
You can find out more about the project and MARVEL team by watching a promo video HERE.

Ideas, trends and networking: Virtual workshop on Applications and Industrialisation of Functional Polymer Films, Paper and Membranes. Register now!

On 21st of October 2020, Amires and Fraunhofer-FEP, in cooperation with the Technology Centre CAS, are organizing a digital workshop on Applications and Industrialisation of Functional Polymer Films, Paper and Membranes in the frame of FlexFunction2Sustian Project.
Structured into two sessions with specific emphasis on the sustainable and smart packaging and smart plastic films for design, optics and security, the workshop targets SMEs, Start-ups and Mid-caps, innovative companies or traditional industries willing to introduce and integrate these materials into their products.
Representatives of leading industries will give talks about the latest trends and share their visions about high-impact future innovative solutions in the respective fields. Already confirmed speakers represent the value chain from packaging material suppliers (HUECK Folien, AMCOR Flexibles, Schreiner Group, Iscent) to users (Sonae MC, Capri Sun, Swarovski) and IP Experts (Sonnenberg Harrison Partners).
During the event, FlexFunction2Sustain project will be introduced as an EU funded initiative to bring together R&D Suppliers, Industries, Startups, Investors and other stakeholders for accelerating innovation in plastic and paper industry – particular smart and sustainable plastics products.
Participation in the workshop is free of charge! Join us online from the comfort of your office or home by filling out the registration form below until 20th of October 2020.

Click here for speakers, programme and registration.
We welcome you to the workshop and look forward to meeting you online!

Join OASIS’ next Open Call Webinar

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases providing support to companies in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites.

Join the second in our series of webinars on 15th September 2020, 1 p.m. CEST.

During this webmeeting, you will learn why and how to apply to this unique opportunity to benefit from the European Commission’s support through the OASIS project.

This webmeeting will provide you information about:

the Horizon 2020 project OASIS
the open call for companies and institutions
the technologies that you can access through the pilot-lines
the business services provided by OASIS to boost your innovation
showcases already implemented to give you an impression of what can be achieved on the technological side with the support of the OASIS consortium.

You can register for the event here – LINK

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KEY FACTS REPORT ON ICT

The Information and Communications Technology Research and Development (ICT R&D) sector is one of the most dynamic sectors in the EU economy. What is the state of R&D in ICT in the EU and beyond? Get an insight into it from the 2020 PREDICT Key Facts Report.

The 2020 PREDICT Key Facts Report provides a detailed analysis of the state of ICT R&D activities in the EU28 and 12 further economies worldwide. The statistical information provided by the figures allows the comparison between: the ICT sector and the total economy; the ICT manufacturing sector and the ICT services sector; the four ICT manufacturing sectors, two ICT services sectors, and MC and RS sectors; EU countries; the EU and the international context (including the most relevant countries in the world economy). The report focuses especially on the ICT R&D macroeconomic dynamics. Report states that the ICT sector is one of the most dynamic sectors in the EU economy, standing out for its high R&D intensity and for a productivity that is higher than that of the whole economy.

The size of the EU28 ICT sector in 2017 amounted to 630 billion euros value added (VA),
employed 6.3 million people
and spent 32 billion euros on R&D (BERD) business expenditures.

The ICT sector represented 4.1% of the EU28 total value added, 2.7% of total employment, 15.2% of total BERD, and 18.1% and 20.4% of the R&D personnel and researchers in the EU28, respectively.

Report avaiable HERE.

The COVID-19 Data Portal- Accelerate Coronavirus Research

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Europe’s flagship laboratory for the life sciences (EMBL) and partners launch the COVID-19 Data Portal that is currently used by 73 000 scientists for vaccine development. This central repository facilitates data sharing and analysis.

A big of scientific efforts are taking place worldwide in order to help combat COVID-19. One of the biggest challenges is to share data and findings in a coordinated way, in order to understand the disease and to develop treatments and vaccines. To address this challenge, EMBL-EBI and partners operate the COVID-19 Data Portal, which brings together relevant datasets submitted to EMBL-EBI and other major centres for biomedical data.
The COVID-19 Data Portal enables researchers to upload, access and analyse COVID-19 related reference data and specialist datasets- such as raw and assembled viral sequences, and signposting to datasets that cannot openly be shared, in particular patient data subject to GDPR requirements, from clinical trials, hospitals and national healthcare systems.

The portal makes it easier for scientists, public health and healthcare professionals to collaborate, which will help accelerate the development of diagnostics, treatment and vaccines.

COVID-19 Data Portal

European Council Adopts Conclusions on the EU Budget for 2021-2027

On 21 July 2020, the European Council agreed on the European Union (EU) budget for 2021 – 2027. The seven-year EU budget (the Multiannual Financial Framework or MFF) of an overall amount of €1,074.3 billion. Alongside the new long-term budget for the EU, they also agreed on the €750 billion recovery package called “Next Generation EU”- aimed at helping the EU come out of the looming recession set in motion by the coronavirus pandemic. €390 billion from the package will be distributed in the form of grants to member states and €360 billion in loans. The EU’s seven-year budget will cover the following main spending areas:

cohesion, resilience and values
natural resources and the environment
migration and border management
security and defence
neighbourhood and the world
European public administration

More information HERE.

EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF INNOVATION 2020

12 finalist cities competing to become the European Capital of Innovation in 2020 are:

Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Espoo (Finland)
Ghent (Belgium)
Groningen (The Netherlands)
Helsingborg (Sweden)
Leeuwarden (The Netherlands)
Leuven (Belgium)
Linz (Austria)
Milano (Italy)
Reykjavik (Iceland)
Valencia (Spain)
Vienna (Austria)

The 6th edition of the European Capital of Innovation Award is funded by Horizon 2020. The prize recognises the EU cities that develop vibrant innovation ecosystems to address public challenges and improve the lives of the people. Cities have shown how they created the conditions for innovation by:

experimenting innovative concepts, processes, tools, and governance models as a test-bed for innovation
engaging citizens in the innovation process and ensuring the uptake of their ideas
expanding the city’s attractiveness to become a role model for other cities
empowering citizens by bringing concrete and measurable added value through the implementation of innovative practices

The winner city will receive the title of European Capital of Innovation 2020 as well as €1,000,000 to support its innovation activities and to enhance its capacity to connect individuals, public sector, academia, and businesses to deliver societal benefits for its communities. Five runners-up will get €100,000 each.

The European Commission will announce the winner and the runners-up of the European Capital of Innovation 2020 contest at the European Research and Innovation Days taking place on 22-24 September 2020. At the same event, the Commission will award the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2020, the EIC Horizon Prize for Affordable High-Tech for Humanitarian Aid, and the Horizon Impact Award 2020.

More details here

Save the date: Web Workshop on Applications and Industrialisation of Functional Polymer Films, Paper and Membranes

We are pleased to announce that AMIRES and Fraunhofer-FEP are organising a Workshop on Applications and Industrialisation of Functional Polymer Films, Paper and Membranes. The event will be held on 21st October 2020 (9.30 – 14.00) with a possibility for virtual participation.

Structured into two sessions with specific emphasis on the sustainable and smart packaging and smart plastic films for design, optics and security, the workshop targets SMEs, Start-ups and Mid-caps, innovative companies or traditional industries willing to introduce and integrate these materials into their products. The event will include presentations of representatives of leading industry’s who will give a talk about the latest trends and share their visions about high-impact future innovative solutions in the respective field.

The workshop is organised in the framework of “FlexFunction2Sustain” project which aims to enable novel solutions and products for plastic and paper based flexible materials and films. The project will integrate the existing European infrastructures into an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) in order to operate in open access mode and serve customers from along the value chain. FlexFunction2Sustain OITB will not only support the market acceptance of these novel products and related technologies, but it will also ensure that prototype ideas from European companies will have the possibility or reaching a semi-industrial scale in short time. Learn more about FlexFunction2Sustain here.

Save the date! We will keep you informed!

FRIENDSHIP: Better Industrial Solar Heating Solutions

Traveling, handshakes, vaccines and stamps

3Dprint.com glances at OrganTrans and regenHU

Simon MacKenzie, CEO of regenHU, partner of OrganTrans recently described in an interview to 3DPrint.com the mission of OrganTrans and the role of regenHU in such challenge project.
MacKenzie explained that OrganTrans uses regenHU’s 3D bioprinters to produce organoid-based liver constructs with organoid laden bioinks. He describes that if the feasibility of the approach in a mouse model will be verified, it will be groundbreaking for the disease, showing its potential as an alternative to transplantation for patients suffering from end-stage liver disease.
regenHU is a pioneer and global leader in tissue and organ printing technologies converging digital manufacturing, biomaterials, and biotechnology to lead transformational innovations in healthcare. regenHU are committed to provide disruptive technologies that will enable the community to make regenerative medicine a reality, to cover today’s researchers and tomorrow’s industrial biofabrication needs.
He emphasized that 3D bioprinting is currently behind 3D printing in other applications, however, it is expanding in Europe. And the role of projects like OrganTrans and companies, such as regenHU are pushing the technology onward.
Continue reading here the complete text of the interview.

My stay at AMIRES

My name is Katharina Kosjak and I am currently studying Molecular Biology and Innovation Management at the University of Graz and Campus 02, University of applied sciences. Always fascinated by nature and its regularities, I wanted to focus on life sciences. However, when I made my very first experiences while traveling the world, I discovered the importance of connecting scientists, economists, and politicians. This was the reason I decided to pursue an interdisciplinary study program and combine science and economy. During my studies I used to work as a paramedic, I became a member of the Young European Federalists (JEF) and since February 2020 I have been president of JEF Styria. Through this organization I took part in many international Erasmus programs, I learned a lot about the European Union and I believe it is important to connect the EU with people.
I applied for an internship at AMIRES without knowing much about consulting, but as I know today, it has been the best decision I could have possibly made. At Amires I had the opportunity to gain a comprehensive insight into the fields of project management and business innovation, which is fundamentally based on a good network. Amires is a space where Ideas come together and an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and exchanging know-how. It does not only connect ideas, but it also connects people with several backgrounds on an international level. Behind every project is a vision of continuous improvement, creative thinking, and open innovation. The realization of those visions is only possible with a good team and a network to spread ideas. It is fascinating to see the development of projects, starting with the first idea and to follow every step of a unique process. Working at Amires means being part of an outstanding team, working in an environment with an international character, and gaining the first impression of how the world of tomorrow could look like.

Open position in Health and Biotech sector

Are you passionate about the newest technological trends in medical technologies and medicine in general? Are you target oriented and responsibility, flexibility, team spirit or time management are no strangers to you? MS Office is your best friend and you are not worried to organize calls, take minutes or prepare presentations? Do you enjoy working in multinational environment with English as the main communication language? Are you ready to cooperate with excellent European R&D&I organisations, SMEs, hospitals and large industries? Then AMIRES is looking for you!

Apply for our newly opened position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects in Health and Biotech sector by sending your CV and motivation letter (both in English) to bajarova(at)amires.eu till August 14 2020. Only candidates that will proceed to the next round of the job competition will be contacted by August 18 2020.

SmartEEs2 Call for AEs – 10 proposals selected for the 1st cut-off date

Following the evaluation process of proposals submitted by the 1st cut-off date, the SmartEEs2 consortium selected 10 proposals to proceed with the contracting phase, and put 1 proposal on a reserve list. The projects are focused on integrating flexible and wearable electronics into advanced new products / series of products.

Altogether 24 proposals were received for this cut-off date, 23 of which were evaluated by the SmartEEs2 Evaluation Panel. The funding amount for each of the selected projects will be decided during the contracting phase.

If you would like to know more about the 1st cut-off evaluation results, please check the Public Evaluation Report .

If you are interested in applying to the SmartEEs2 Call for AEs, please check the requirements on this page.

FlexFunction2Sustain website is now live!

We are pleased to announce that the full version of the FlexFunction2Sustain project website is now available (https://flexfunction2sustain.eu/). Learn more about our goal to establish an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) to boost innovations for plastic and paper based flexible materials and films. The project aims to integrate the existing European infrastructures into an ecosystem, which will be able to operate in open access mode and serve customers from along the value chain. On our webpage, the users can discover information on the technical facilities that will be upgraded for processing of novel sustainable plastic materials and paper. Their new functionalities will be demonstrated in relevant industrial use cases covering various application areas such as sustainable smart packaging, plastic and paper electronics, surfaces and membranes in bio application and optical film for security and design. In the second phase of the project, the service portfolio will be subsequently verified and demonstrated by 20 pre-commercial pilot cases. Therefore, on the “Open Calls” section, all interested SMEs and industries can sign up to receive the latest information for the competitive calls, foreseen for January 2022 and January 2023. The contacts section provides information for the Project Coordinator and Project Manager as well as a contact form to send your inquire about related activities or additional information.

AMIRES looking for Office Manager / Executive Assistant

Are you responsible, proactive, diligent? Do you enjoy working on different administrative and organisational tasks having colourful daily routine? Would you like to support our multinational team and help to strengthen its team spirit? Are you a proficient user of Microsoft Office? Do you speak fluently Czech and English? Then AMIRES is looking for you.

Apply for our newly opened position of Office Manager / Executive Assistant by sending your CV and motivation letter (both in English) to bajarova(at)amires.eu till August 5 2020. Only candidates that will proceed to the next round of the job competition will be contacted by August 7 2020.

Join the OASIS Open Call webinar on 16th July

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases providing support to companies in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites.

Join our webmeeting on 16 July 2020, 1 p.m. CEST.

During this webmeeting, you will learn why and how to apply to this unique opportunity to benefit from the European Commission’s support through the OASIS project.

This webmeeting will provide you information about:

the Horizon 2020 project OASIS
the open call for companies and institutions
the technologies that you can access through the pilot-lines
the business services provided by OASIS to boost your innovation
showcases already implemented to give you an impression of what can be achieved on the technological side with the support of the OASIS consortium.

You can register for the event here – LINK

OASIS Open Call_webinar-1440x501.png

OASIS Open Call has been launched!

The OASIS Open Innovation Test Bed has launched an Open Call for Democases with the objective of providing support to institutions in the development of lightweight multifunctional products based on aluminium and polymer composites. Successful applicants to the OASIS Open Call will get free access to an ecosystem of 12 nanotechnology manufacturing pilot lines, providing nanomaterials, nano-intermediates, nano-enabled products and associated services. The selected applicants will be provided with customized support through a complete set of services integrating technical and business expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases. If interested, please check OASIS’ website, browse through its Catalogue of services, read the conditions of the Call, and eventually apply with your Democase here – LINK.

The Call’s first cut-off date, after which proposals will be evaluated and selected for support, is on 31st January 2021. We strongly encourage all potential applicants to check the feasibility of their ideas prior to submitting their proposals. Please do so by contacting the HelpDesk at helpdesk@project-oasis.eu or by calling this number +420 226 217 422.

Marketplace: Virtual Catalogue for Flexible and Wearable Electronics is Live!

The Digital Innovation Hub – SmartEEs has built a digital platform, with catalog showcasing a globally unique and comprehensive list of validated Flexible and Wearable Electronics (FWE) products, prototypes and technical services. Particularly in these days, it is essential to build more agile and European value chains and to integrate already existing products or modules for fast market entry.

Through the catalog, each registered visitor can discover available technology and its use in various application fields. The aim of the catalog is to enable business innovation partnerships for developing novel products or services based on Flexible and Wearable Electronics. Last but not least, the registered offering may be involved in the experiments selected and co-financed by SmartEEs. This is the opportunity for the promotion of your FWE products, prototypes and services!

We invite you to register your organization and to share your capabilities with the SmartEEs community.
Register now by following these steps:
1.         Visit: https://ecosystem.smartees2.eu/
2.         Register in: Organization registry
3.         Wait for confirmation (max 48 hours)
4.         Go to the Marketplace and start adding New Items

Currently, the marketplace offers innovating companies the possibility to explore more than 80 innovative offerings, based on flexible electronics. These innovative technologies correspond to the state-of-the-art applications in Organic Photovoltaics, Flexible Displays, OLED Lighting, Electronics & Components and Integrated Smart Systems. Moreover, the Marketplace offers companies the possibility to consult different products by application domain. Available domains comprise applications for automotive, buildings, consumer electronics, energy, lighting, logistics, medical & pharmaceutical, packaging, graphic arts and textile sectors. The SmartEEs Marketplace is a place to innovate the business of SMEs, Mid-caps and Large companies while scouting for new business opportunities with flexible electronics technologies and to connect supply (ready to integrate products, prototypes, services) & demand (designers, integrators, solution providers, vendors), and to facilitate the promotion of innovative products.

See you in the marketplace where we display the best examples of what is possible with Flexible and Wearable Electronics Technologies.

Medical Devices Development, As Fast As Light?

Perhaps Medical Devices cannot be on the market as fast as light, but we can try to accelerate the process. That is what MedPhab will try to do, being the first European Pilot Line of photonics-based medical devices. Photonics21 published a Press Release about MedPhab on June 22, which highlights the importance in finding better, faster and more reliable ways of developing medical devices.

Medical devices development process takes normally long time from concept to clinical trials, and for instance to be introduced in the market. This process is not only slow but also significantly expensive. MedPhab aims to cut the costs involved in research and development of medical devices and more specifically diagnostic devices using photonics. MedPhab’s aim is to create easy access for European SMEs, researchers and businesses to a unified infrastructure dedicated to manufacturing, testing, validation and up-scaling of new photonics technologies that are used for medical diagnostics. Photonics being the field of physics that studies, uses and manipulates light is capable of helping the doctors and clinicians to understand diseases with greater specificity and sensitivity without being invasive. Helping its clients to implement cutting-edge photonics technologies into their medical diagnostics products, MedPhab believes it will significantly improve health and patient care. Through the Use Case Validation Program, MedPhab will ensure that the prototypes adhere to the highest medical standards, MedPhab selects companies that are validated with ISO13485 standardised manufacturing. (ISO13485 is the standard for a Quality Management System for the design and manufacture of Medical Devices). Use-case companies will cover both in-vivo and in-vitro domains in order to cover three application areas: hospital use, home care devices and equipment for molecular diagnostics. Moreover, the pilot line focuses on technologies such as Fibre optics, Microfluidics, Surface functionalisation, Instrumentation, Optoelectronic integration, Custom medical patches, Miniaturisation for micromodules and wearables. Medical devices development cannot be as fast as light but MedPhab is lightning a faster path. Read the full press release on MedPhab’s website or Photonics21 website.

Findings of the General Data Protection Regulation Review

The EC published an evaluation report on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The General Data Protection Regulation is a single set of rules of EU law on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data.

The report shows the GDPR has met most of its objectives, in particular by offering citizens a strong set of enforceable rights and by creating a new European system of governance and enforcement. The GDPR proved to be flexible to support digital solutions in unforeseen circumstances such as the Covid-19 crisis. It also finds that businesses are developing a compliance culture and increasingly use strong data protection as a competitive advantage. Read the full report from the EC on the key findings of the GDPR review HERE.

The Key Measures Needed to Achieve the European Green Deal

Fighting climate change and making Europe climate-neutral by 2050 is one of the main priorities of the European Commission. In support of this priority, the Commission is reinforcing Green Deal-related research and innovation with this dedicated call for proposals under the current research and innovation programme – Horizon 2020.

The European Green Deal is our roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable and the first climate-neutral continent. Over 35% of Horizon Europe spending will contribute to climate objectives therefore the Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG R&I) invites the research and industrial stakeholders, including RTOs to participate in the recently published broader stakeholder consultation on the Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy. The Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy aims to provide the policy tools to ensure the financial system genuinely supports the transition of the industry towards sustainability in a context of recovery. The strategy is an integral part of the European Green Deal and will contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal Investment Plan, in particular to create an enabling framework for private investors and the public sector to facilitate sustainable investments.

Read initial roadmap of the key policies and measures needed to achieve the European Green Deal here and take part in stakeholder consultation on the Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy by providing your feedback through the online questionnaire by 15 July 2020.

AMIRES is One of the EU Datathon Finalists

AMIRES was selected as one of the 12 finalists out of 121 proposals for EU Datathon. EU Datathon is an annual open data competition organized by the Publications Office of the EU since 2017. The main goal is to stimulate innovation and transform the interaction between citizens and the EU administration. Our idea proceeded to compete in the finals during the European Week of Regions and Cities (12-15 October 2020) in Brussels.
There are four categories according to the challenge to be addressed:

A European Green Deal (Challenge 1),
An economy that works for people (Challenge 2),
A new push for European democracy (Challenge 3)
and a Europe fit for the digital age (Challenge 4).

AMIRES team has been tackled challenge number 2- An economy that works for people. As a result, our team consists of John Kennedy Mwangi, Rudolf Fryček, Roman Pašek and Lenka Bajarova will develop new application called EU4Region. EU4Region is a visualisation platform that maps the state of cohesiveness and inclusion of EU regions through funding. It seeks to explore the absorption capacity of EU funding and help identify unknown patterns, causal relations and changes resulting from injection of EU funds in various regions. The AMIRES team’s ambition for this platform is to facilitate evidence-based policy-making by identifying regions that are lagging behind and encourage their participation in future funding programmes.

We are grateful to be part of creating new value for citizens through innovation and promoting the use of open data. Good luck to all teams!
Read more information about EU datathon.

AMIRES looking for new team member!

We are proud of the work we do, and our success is primarily the result of our passionate team of dedicated people. To support our growth, we are looking for highly motivated people to join our team in Prague for a position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects.

If you are interested in new technologies, great at communication, familiar with European R&D&I funding, have analytical mind set and organizational skills and like challenges, then our job proposal is for you. Read HERE for more.

Virus can connect people!

EU hackaton ‘EU vs Virus’ took place on 24-26 April, 2020, in which 600 volunteers and Commission officers from seven departments of the Commission and lead by the European Innovation Council teamed up for this initiative.
The interaction during these two intense days resulted in 2164 multi-disciplinary teams, from different countries and brought innovative ideas and solutions to COVID19 pandemics in different subjects. The winners in topics of health and Life, Business Continuity, Social & Political Cohesion, Remote Working & Education and Digital Finance received 3000 -5000 Euros that were sponsored by different companies, such as Caixa Bank Payments and Consumer, Huawei, AXWAY, EY. They were additionally invited to participate in the Matchathon that was held from 22 to 25 May on the new EIC COVID Platform. This second event enabled match-making with end-users, and provided access to other funding opportunities from across the EU. The closing ceremony occurred on June 2, 2020 as the “Accomplishment day”. More information HERE

Substantial reduction of plastic waste in the world: FlexFunction2Sustain project

FlexFunction2Sustain – Open Innovation Test Bed to boost innovations for sustainable plastic and paper products to reach the market faster

European (EU) H2020 funded FlexFunction2Sustain project, officially started on 1st April, 2020, is set to establish an Open Innovation Test Bed for nano-functionalisation technologies that enables sustainable and smart plastics and paper based products. AMIRES, together with eighteen consortium members, coordinated by Fraunhofer-FEP , unify their competencies, business development expertise and technical infrastructure to provide users an easy access to holistic innovation boosting services through a Single Entry Point. The ecosystem aims at helping companies to drastically reduce the time and cost to progress through the innovation chain from an idea to a successful product in the market.

Read the Press Release announcing the launch of the FlexFunction2Sustain project.

Key Enablers of the Progress in Biosensor

AMIRES participated in next interactive EPIC Technology Meeting on Biosensors, occured on 11 May 2020 and here are some of the highlights.

One of the key topics discussed was development of various Point-of-care (POC) tests for timely and reliable detection of COVID-19. Laura Lechuga, the Head of the Nanobiosensors & Bioanalytical Applications at ICN2 presented a solution, which is cheaper POC nanophotonics-based version of the Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests (RT-PCR) laboratory testing. While establishing a manufacturing process of the nanophotonic-based biosensor, some of the highlighted challenges which are quite common for development of biosensors are: packaging and biofunctionalization. As demonstrated by presentations of industrial partners (Surfix, PIXAPP, LIGENTEC), Europe’s manufacturing base is ready to address such challenge. One of the recent examples of strengthened manufacturing capability of Europe is the MedPhab H2020 funded initiative, which sets up Europe’s first manufacturing pilot line for photonics-based medical diagnostic devices and instruments to accelerate their development and commercialization.

From the technologies, integrated photonics was presented as a key enabler of the progress in biosensor research and development. Surface plasmon resonance imaging (NESPRI) was praised as a reliable sensing technology method. It has been successfully applied also in ULTRAPLACAD project, which recently developed an ULTRAsensitive PLAsmonic device for early Cancer Diagnosis.

For more information on the agenda and presentations click HERE

Breakthrough Advancements in Organic Large Area Electronics

Breakthrough advancements in Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE) are ahead of us thanks to the RoLA-FLEX project that has officially kicked-off on 1st May 2020. Although its Kick-off meeting needed to be held remotely via a teleconference (on 6th May), the consortium partners managed to have a fruitful meeting and discuss the plan for the project’s first year.

RoLA–FLEX is an industry driven project led by National Technical University of Athens, which provides innovative solutions to the existing OLAE challenges associated with performance and lifetime, through:

(a) the fabrication and upscaling of organic semiconductors with high charge mobilities (up to 10 cm2/Vs) and high power conversion efficiencies (16% in OPV cell and 12% in OPV module);
(b) the development of metal oxides for charge carrier selective contacts and metal nanoinks for highly conductive micropatterns with increased environmental stability;
(c) the seamless incorporation of high speed laser digital processing in Roll-2-Roll Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) module fabrication and photolithography based Organic Thin Film Transistor (OTFT) manufacturing and
(d) the demonstration of two TRL5+ OLAE prototypes enabled by the developed materials and innovative processes:

A smart energy platform for IoT devices powered by ITO-free and flexible OPVs operating at low indoor light conditions.
A new generation of bezel-less and fully bendable smart watches integrating FHD, ultra-bright OLCD/OTFT displays.

RoLA-FLEX will advance all the aforementioned technologies to at least TRL5 within its timeframe. RoLA-FLEX will create an opportunity for a yearly increase in revenues of almost €400 M only 6 years after its end, accompanied by hundreds of new jobs. A timely investment in the early days of these new markets can ensure significant market share for the SMEs and Industries involved and greatly boost EU’s competitiveness globally.

MedPhab on EPIC webinar “In vivo imaging”

On May 4^th, 2020 online meeting about “In-vivo imaging” was organized by EPIC who brought up together start-ups, SMEs and research centres, experts in in vivo imaging. In vivo imaging is the visualization of living organisms for research or diagnostic purposes, in these talks the living organisms are the humans.

Ten speakers presented their expertise, interest and role in this topic with application in medical sector. Jussi Hiltunen, MedPhab coordinator, introduced the pilot-line to the audience of this meeting. Not only the speakers which presented their current research and development were participating but also the attendants contributed to the discussions. Mariana Pacheco Blanco, from Amires, as MedPhab partner described the role of AMIRES in MedPhab, and how the company portfolio and expertise in proposal preparation and project management could be of interest for the attendants.

The topics that were discussed and presented ranged from applications in different cancers, surgery, ophthalmology, endoscopy, and even remote education for medical students and trainees. Start-of-the-art technologies of imaging, such as optical components, lasers, fibres, optical coherence tomography, were presented. This meeting incubates future collaborations and partnerships for applications in in vivo imaging.
Link to the video event.

THE MANUELA PROJECT HANDBOOK IS OUT!

ORGANTRANS website is up

Join the Global Response

The European Union and its partners are hosting an international pledging conference starting on Monday 4 May 2020. The aim is to raise €7.5bn to develop and deploy effective diagnostics, treatments and a vaccine.

WHO IS INVITED to pledge to help reach the funding target of €7.5 billion:

International organisations,
financial institutions
and private sector companies of all countries

They need to ensure that not only we develop these life-saving tools but that we ensure they are universally available and affordable.
Individuals can show their support by spreading awareness to encourage companies to pitch in.

Fund raising starts on 4 May 2020 – JOIN HERE.
Let’s support European effort to raise funding for developing vaccine and treatments against coronavirus.

The Virus Knows No Borders

The impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the most fragile countries, migrants and the most vulnerable people is likely to be dramatic. “The virus knows no borders. This global challenge needs strong international cooperation.“ said The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

This means all EU institutions and Member States have to work together as a real Team Europe to provide the effective contribution to the global response. Team Europe approach, aimed at saving lives by providing quick and targeted support to EU partners facing pandemic. It combines resources from the EU, its Member States and financial institutions, in particular the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. From existing external action resources, the EU is mobilising more than €15.6 billion, to:

1. tackle immediate needs, both humanitarian and in the health care sector- €502 million.
2. strengthen the health, water and sanitation systems of partner countries, and support research- €2.8 billion
3. address the economic and social consequences- €12.28 billion

The distribution logic follows the needs of our partner countries but will also take into account the added value, efficiency and complementarity of EU resources, with what other European and non-European stakeholders are doing. The EU’s contribution to the emergency humanitarian response will be allocated on the basis of needs on the ground and will prioritize the most vulnerable groups. The distribution of EU resources should not be isolated from what EU Member States will contribute to address the short to medium and long-term impact of the crisis in our partner countries and regions.

The EU will promote a coordinated multilateral response, in partnership with the United Nations, International Financial Institutions, as well as the G7 and the G20.

Download the factsheet on concrete examples of EU support in partner countries

Source:
ttps://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_604
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_606
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/fs_20_607

ORGANTRANS in video lecture on Regenerative Hepatology

Collaborative Work on COVID19 Research

InSCOPE finishes but its Pilot Line continues

After 39 months of implementation, InSCOPE project has come to an end. Back in January 2017, 11 partners from 8 European countries joined their forces and knowledge for an ambitious adventure of setting up an InSCOPE Pilot Line for Hybrid TOLAE (H-TOLAE) technologies in the automotive, healthcare, smart packaging and building sectors, and validating its services by 4 Showcases and 15 development cases.

It has been an amazing experience and a true example of successful collaboration across different cultures and borders. A perfect match between technical (TNO, CPI, CEA, VTT, IMEC, Walter Pack / Symbose) and industrial partners (Signify, Bosch, KONE and GSK) backed up by EU project management experts (AMIRES) made it possible to set up the Pilot line and achieve some remarkable results in line with the undertaken commitments with the European Commission.

If you are interested to learn more about our major results with the lighting wall, haptic dashboard, interactive elevator or smart blisters please check here. In addition, you can request here your copy of the InSCOPE Handbook with all relevant information about the project and its Pilot Line.

Event though the InSCOPE project ended, its Pilot Line will continue operating under different settings, one of which is a newly awarded H2020 project called SmartEEs2. Interested SMEs and Mid-caps can apply to the Call for Application Experiments with a topic Support to manufacturing of FWE based end-products including upscaling, and the selected companies will be offered a service by the Pilot Line. All those companies who wish to avoid the application process and just discuss independent collaboration opportunities can simply contact our coordinator Corne Rentrop at corne.rentrop@tno.nl .

A big thank you to all our partners and good luck to all with the new adventures!

SmartEEs2 to support 2 proposals fighting against Covid-19

MedPhab website officially has launched!

MedPhab website has officially launched!!! Through this open channel, public can learn about MedPhab, and its advantages as the first European pilot line for photonic-based medical devices. Potential customers have an overview of the MedPhab’s capabilities and expertise of its offering in manufacture, development and upscaling of photonics-based medical products. MedPhab partners help in developing new concepts and a sustainable access to its operations. The technology validation of pilot production line focuses on three application areas: hospital use, home care devices and equipment for molecular diagnostics. External users will be able to adopt MedPhab technologies through the Demo-Case Open Calls programme, which will be open from June 30, 2021, so stay tuned! Moreover, this program demonstrates the pilot line services and validates the open access business model to accelerate the product development. If further questions remain, info@medphab.eu email is available, or an online Contact form exists.

Ubrings often the missing piece for complex consortia (1).png

Joining SmartEEs Community

Over 30 participants joined the Workshop for Third Party Suppliers offering technology services in the field of flexible & wearable electronics. Originally planned face-to-face workshop at LOPEC 2020 was organized as an online event on 24th March 2020 through the Zoom video conferencing platform provided by AMIRES. SmartEEs2 partners CEA, FhG and AMIRES were happy to present to the invited companies the SmartEEs Community and benefits of becoming it member. Companies had the opportunity to lean more about the project, Financial Support to Third Parties, (FSTP) and evaluation and assignment process of the selected application experiments. Fruitful question and answer session concluded the event with an invitation to companies to stay tuned for further steps in the process of joining the SmartEEs Community.

For more information about the event and presentations, please check the links below:

Recording of the workshop

Presentations

Success Stories– An Effective Impact of Coaching

Platinn Coaching, the Western Switzerland Innovation Platform, fosters the innovation capabilities and competitiveness of start-ups and SMEs. Amires’s CEO Rudolf Fryček, is a Platinn cooperation coach and since 2011 he has been helping SMEs to reach their milestones.
Lately, two SMEs- regenHU and Daphne experienced an effective impact of the coaching that enabled them to complete the development and testing of its system and put new innovative products on the market. The coaching was primarily focused on the evaluation of European public funding opportunities and the establishment of partnerships in order to develop new products. Both cases succeeded to get funding from the framework of Horizon 2020, the EU financial tool for innovation.

The success stories belong to regenHU and Daphne that have done a huge step towards:

Regenerative medicine – by replacing diseased tissue with healthy, artificially produced tissue
Decreasing maritime pollution– by developing a system to purify exhaust thanks to nanotechnology which eliminates up to 99.3% of sulfur oxides and 85% of nitrogen oxides.

regenHU has dedicated its engineering skills to cutting-edge 3D bioprinting solutions, allowing the artificial creation of biological tissues. regenHU develops both software and instruments. Their printers biofacture “in vitro” models to be able to test new products or develop human tissues for regenerative medicine.

Amires CEO, Rudolf Fryček helped regenHu to set up the search for partners and the preparation of the project proposal. regenHU is now part of the Horizon 2020 European funded project Organtrans aims to develop a disruptive solution that enables the 3D printing of tissue-engineered constructs.

Daphne sells Nanotechnology-based exhaust, catalyst-free, dry scrubber (air pollution reduction technology), which allow cargo ships to comply with the International Maritime Organization regulations on the emissions, while still using Heavy Fuel Oil, which come into effect in 2020. Shipowners around the world will now have to run their ships on fuel containing 0.5% sulfur compared to 3.5% so far. The company has developed a system to purify exhaust gases, called SulPure, this filtration works thanks to nanotechnology which eliminates up to 99.3% of sulfur oxides and 85% of nitrogen oxides. At the end of the process, the exhaust gases are converted into solid particles which can then be recovered to be destroyed or possibly used as fertilizer.

Daphne Technology received 2.5 million euros in European grants in the framework of Horizon 2020. With this latest boost, Daphne Technology will be able to complete the development and testing of its system by the end of the year. Dr. Mario Michal, Founder and Chief Executive of Daphne said: “Thanks to Rudolf Fryček experience, we were able to understand the European subsidy system. There are a lot of scholarships and grants, but they all operate according to specific rules. Rudolf helped us identify the programs we could apply for, and then formalize our proposal for Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator. He is truly an expert in his field.”
Horizon 2020, the EU financial tool for innovation is indeed a very useful fund contribution to SMEs to do applied research and therefore to be able to put new innovative products on the market later.

SmartEEs2 Call for integration of flexible and wearable electronics technologies is now open!

SmartEEs2 is an original European acceleration program dedicated to helping innovative companies digitise their businesses thanks to flexible and wearable electronics (FWE) testing, experimentation and manufacturing support. How do we do it? We opened a Call for Application Experiments on 6 March 2020 and set 5 cut – off dates between June 2020 and August 2021 for the evaluation and selection of submitted proposals. All interested companies, satisfying the criteria, are invited to submit their application experiment proposals.

All applicants to the SmartEEs2 program will get access to FWE and manufacturing technologies as listed in the Marketplace to integrate advanced features / functions inside new products and / or to make a series of products.

The winners of the Call will benefit from SmartEEs unique ecosystem composed of leading research organizations, a number of innovative technology suppliers, recognized experts in business development and investors.

The selected Innovative Companies will be provided customized support through a complete set of services integrating technical, business, ecosystem expertise which will enable them to build up sustainable business cases.

Check out our Call for Application Experiments (AEs) at www.smartees.eu and do not wait too long to apply! And good luck to all applicants!

Horizon Impact Award 2020

This award is the European Commission’s initiative to recognize and celebrate outstanding projects that have used their results to provide value for society. These projects must have been funded by FP7 and/or Horizon 2020 funding programmes and they must be closed by the time of application.

Coordinators, Project teams take the chance to win The Horizon Impact Award (Five prizes of 10,000 EUR will be awarded) showcase your best practices and achievements from your project for these reasons:

You can inspire beneficiaries of research and innovation funding to maximize the impact of their research.
You will show the wider socio-economic benefits of EU investment in research and innovation.
The Horizon Impact Award will provide the winners with high visibility in the form of public interest and increased media coverage.

Last year winners came up with a new drug for a rare disease, helped prevent child abuse, increased security of browsing the web and protected coastal areas against the effects of climate change.

Closing date for submission is on 2 April 2020. More information on the criteria HERE.

Failed Goal to Boost R&D Spending

An Offer for the US to Join the Horizon Europe

Discussions on Horizon Europe implementation are progressing – here are some of the important milestones that have been achieved.
A screenshot of a computer

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Besides the 16 EU neighbours already in the existing programme,the Commission is dicussing Horizon membership with six other non-EU countries: Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. The commission is proposing that non-EU countries, including longstanding partners like Switzerland and Israel, get out of Horizon only as much money as they commit to it, a change from the prior formula that saw some countries ending up with more or less money than they contributed. The draft Horizon legislation, which EU member state officials are due to start discussing on 10 February, also requires that Horizon partners share the same democratic values – a veto to China – and provide reciprocal access for EU researchers in their own national programmes.

However as the commission gets ready for formal Horizon negotiations with non-EU countries, the transatlantic contractual disagreement has grown into a bigger issue.

Constance C. Arvis, director of the US State Department’s Office of Science and Technology expressed “concern” about EU-US cooperation.
“If they (the terms) are finalised in the path that we think they may be, that means that for seven years we are going to have to interact with a structure that is fundamentally not going to incentivise science across the Atlantic. And we think that is a very unnecessary and undesirable outcome,” Arvis said.

In her statement, Arvis said

the budgetary terms are “not an incentive to associate” – the legal term for a country formally joining the programme.
The proposed terms also don’t allow an international associate any oversight. “In other words, we can pay in, but we don’t get to decide how it’s used,”
In addition, the terms would allow the commission “unilaterally to exclude” associated third countries from elements of the programme.

Read the full text Constance C. Arvis, director for science and technology cooperation at the US State Department, delivered Here

More information:here

SmartEEs Community – New Call for Application Experiments opening soon!

Breakthrough in Nanophotonic Devices: POSEIDON

The FET-OPEN project POSEIDON had its kick-off meeting on January, 23-24, 2020 in Aachen, in the facilities of AMO GmbH. POSEIDON is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, which aims at developing a radically new bottom-up approach for integrated light sources for silicon photonics.
“We will tear down the massive costs and complexity barriers of current top-down approaches for fabricating photonic integrated circuits”, says the project coordinator Anna Lena Giesecke from AMO GmbH. “The idea is to integrate light sources directly into the photonic circuits by exploiting the self-assembly of active colloids on chips. In this way, we will be able to realize cheap and yet very powerful optical devices, with a very broad range of applications, from data centers to medical sensors.”
If the range of potential applications is broad, the project target explicitly the usual wavelengths of data-communications, with the goal of realizing cheap and efficient optical switches to drastically improve the energy efficiency of data-centers and network performance. The project itself is extremely exciting from the scientific and the technological point of view, as it requires developing a multi-scale approach to design and control the self-assembly of the colloids with nanometer-scale resolution in all three spatial directions directly on photonic integrated circuit.

The project involves eight partners, which represent the top EU innovation-performers in modelling and simulation, colloid synthesis, hierarchical assembly, development of electrically pumped colloidal light sources and fabrication of photonic integrated circuits. POSEIDON is also endorsed by key innovation players (IBM, Hitachi, Mellanox, Causeway Sensors, Senseair), which are involved in defining the target specifications and impact monitoring of the new technology. More information on the project can be found at https://poseidon-fet.eu/ (full version available in March 2020).

Contact persons:	Coordinator:	Project Manager:
Name	Dr. Anna Lena Giesecke	Kristina Pandek
Organisation	AMO GmbH	AMIRES s.r.o.
Email	giesecke@amo.de	pandek@amires.eu

POSEIDON project has a duration of 48 months. Keep tuned on the upcoming project results!

Simplify your tracking – IOTSU® by Small Data Garden

Watch the video we’ve created together with Small Data Garden within the SmartEEs project to see what kind of solutions it brings to life.

IOTSU Flexi is a flexible, plaster-like node that enables remote monitoring of assets and measurement of various parameters for a wide range of applications. The capability to measure acceleration, orientation, position, temperature and moisture levels makes it perfect for applications ranging from medicine and sport to premium parcel services and cold-chain management. The option to extend this solution with other sensors makes the breadth of use case scenarios practically limitless.

The three-way cooperation between Small Data Garden, VTT as the technology provider and AMIRES providing business support, has proven to be invaluable in creating a market ready technology within a short time frame. Such cases will also be supported within SmartEEs 2 project so stay tuned for news about that as its first Open Call is about to launch in March!

Simplifying The Study of Organs

One day after the end of the kick-off meeting of the EU project, OrganTrans-in which AMIRES is a partner-, speakers from renowned companies and institutions presented the last updates of the state-of-the-art tissue and in vitro disease models technologies during the workshop: “Next Gen Organ-on-chip and Organoids”. AMIRES was represented by the attendance of Dr. Mariana Pacheco Blanco. This insightful set of talks were organized by OrganTrans coordinators, Swiss research and technology organization (CSEM), on Thursday February 6th, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
When stem cells (precursors of cells) are cultured in a miniaturized and simplified way to represent the complexity of the organ 3D structure and microenvironment are called organoids. In order to mimic the conditions of real organs, the use of micro devices (or chips) have been developed, more substantially in the last decade. During the workshop, through different detailed presentations the audience could have an enhanced understanding of the new technologies using organs on-chip and organoids, mainly in the study of disease models.
The speakers presented data on the validation of the newest technologies of organs on chips, such as liver, intestine, brain, lung, neuronal networks, vascular systems, kidney, muscle. These chips are based on microfluidics, deep machine learning and automatized systems, even tissue printing platforms. The use of these technologies is being used for the characterization, imaging, functional analysis and even drug studies of organs-on chip and organoids. Not only research in human samples were presented but also tissues of other species, namely rats and dogs, which allows the methodology to be more robust.
One of the main goals of the application of these miniaturized tools is to be able to implement a more personalized medicine, a “You-on chip” medicine as OrganTrans coordinator Gilles Weder more accurately described it.

Regenerative medicine breakthrough: ORGANTRANS

New European manufacturing capacity for photonics-based medical diagnostics

Photonics is based on combining optics and electronics, and it enables various medical applications from diagnostic devices to instruments for treatment. However, both photonics in itself and its areas of application are fragmented, which poses challenges to equipment manufacturers. Furthermore, the strict regulations within the sector slow down the introduction of new solutions. The orders for the pilot production line are made in a centralised manner and channelled to the manufacturer with the best implementation capability.

The European Commission decided to expand the existing photonics pilot-line offering by funding the establishment of MedPhab pilot-line under Horizon 2020 from 1 January 2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The purpose of MedPhab pilot production line is to accelerate the commercialisation of diagnostic devices and instruments based on photonics, and to reduce the R&D cost. Based on testing the validation of the pilot production line on three application areas: hospital environment, home care devices and equipment for chemical diagnostics. Such project needs the cooperation of a consortium of excellent research institutes and companies that have experience in ISO 13485 standardized manufacturing and/or strong expertise in photonics. The consortium gathered together for two days in Brussels (14 – 15 January 2020), Belgium to discuss the challenges and expectations of the four year work process, demonstrating the importance and potential of MedPhab.

More information about the MedPhab pilot line project launch can be accessed HERE.

Information about the projet and its progress will soon be available on the project website HERE.

A new era for free-form micro-optics

The EU project PHABULOuS (Pilot-line providing highly advanced & robust manufacturing technology for optical free-form μ-structures) has been launched on January 15 and 16, 2020, at CSEM in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

The consortium is unifying Europe’s leading Companies and Research & Technology Organizations (RTOs), through the creation of a self-sustainable pilot line for the design and manufacturing of free-form micro-optical solutions. These solutions will be integrated into high added-value devices, spanning from micro displays for augmented reality, to innovative systems for professional, automotive, and transportation lighting to optical effects for luxury. The PHABULOuS consortium will synchronize its efforts to translate urgent and high-impact industrial needs into industrially relevant predictive software packages, manufacturing tools and processes, characterization methods for quality inspection and integration schemes, all necessary for the successful demonstration of this technology in pre-commercial production runs.

Additional information on the pilot line can be found here.

Microoptics is … PHABULOuS!

Optical microtechnology is a booming field in different markets such as industrial, medical, automotive, consumer and mobile, and so there is no surprise that EPIC Meeting on Wafer Level Optics, hosted by SUSS MicroOptics in Neuchatel (Switzerland) brought together large number of companies and stakeholders covering the supply chain including end-users, fabrication techniques, materials and metrology. This meeting allowed the key players in wafer level microoptics to discuss the benefits and motivation of standards and potential collaborations to reinforce the industry and reduce fragmentation. Different applications were discussed such as CMOS image sensors, automotive, lighting, AR/VR headsets, datacom, consumer electronics etc.
This event provided a brilliant opportunity to introduce for the first time PHABULOµS pilot line for optical free-form micro-structures that will be developed and set-up during the H2020 project PHABULOµS starting from January 2020. The presentation was held by the project coordinator Rolando Ferrini (CSEM) and can be found here.

Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Partnership

Towards Climateneutral Continent

The High-Tech Horizon Prize

BREXIT and UK’s participation in Horizon 2020

From Flexible Electronics Projects to Ecosystem

Over 40 participants came to Prague on 11th December 2019 to take part in the Workshop on APPLICATIONS AND INDUSTRIALISATION WITH FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS. The event was organized in the framework of the InSCOPE and SmartEEs projects with the objective of presenting the InSCOPE project results and informing the public about the opportunities offered by the flexible electronics community.

The workshop was opened by Rudolf Frycek, CEO of AMIRES, and Corne Rentrop, the coordinator of the InSCOPE project. During the first session, participants were able to hear more about the four partners of the InSCOPE project – Bosch, Signify, KONE and GSK – and their experiences and results obtained during the 3-year project implementation. Matthias Mahlich, Peter Bancken, Rasmus Lonnqvist and Panagiota Tsapuornioti gave some interesting insights into the printed electronics applications in automotive, smart buildings and medical packages.

The second session was dedicated to examples of flexible electronics in the health, packaging/logistics and building sectors, which were realized through a development case of the Dutch company UNITRON supported by the InSCOPE project as presented by Pieter de Wilde, and thought SmartEEs application experiments of innovative companies – Small Data Garden, Esyst and 3DMA which were represented by Timo Liukko, Jaroslav Sochor, and Robert Fuhrmann respectively. Representatives of large volume manufacturers, Kari Ronka and Marek Ramski from Flexbright and OledWorks shared their developments and ideas with flexible electronics technologies.

Finally, Rudolf Frycek informed the participants about the future opportunities / benefits and EU support for SMEs and Mid-caps.

With the motivation from speakers, a chance to interact with key industry stakeholders, and touch and feel the displayed demonstrators, it was truly an event to remember. Stay tunes for next events and we hope to see you there!

Happy Birthday Smart2Go!

AMIRES looking for new team members!

We are proud of the work we do, and our success is primarily the result of our passionate team of dedicated people. To support our growth, we are looking for highly motivated people to join our team in Prague for a position of Project Manager of European R&D&I projects.

If you are interested in new technologies, great at communication, familiar with European R&D&I funding, have analytical mind set and organizational skills and like challenges, then our job proposal is for you. Read HERE for more.

WORKSHOP ON APPLICATIONS AND INDUSTRIALISATION WITH FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS

We are pleased to announce that in cooperation with Technology Centre, AMIRES is organizing a WORKSHOP ON APPLICATIONS AND INDUSTRIALISATION WITH FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS in Prague, Czech Republic on 11th December from 9.30 a.m. – 14.00 p.m. in the framework of InSCOPE and SmartEEs projects. The workshop targets companies willing to use and integrate flexible electronics in existing or new products. Participants of the workshop will have the opportunity to see examples of new products and prototypes based of flexible, large area and wearable technologies, and to listen to manufacturers and suppliers presenting their scalable technologies and existing business opportunities.

Last but not least, a support for SMEs and midcaps in the form of micro grants will be presented, including prototyping and faster translation to large volume manufacturing.

Detailed information can be found in the Flyer.

We look forward to seeing you in Prague, and please do not forget to register your participation here.

Help to Finalise initiatives under Horizon Europe

The European Commission would like to hear your views on the 12 proposed institutionalised partnerships under Horizon Europe. The proposed partnerships cover the topics such as Innovative Health Initiative, Innovative SMEs or Key Digital Technologies. Draft acts are open for feedback that will be taken into account for finalising an initiative. Let’s increase the impacts of investments and say what matters most. This survey will close on 6 November 2019. Read more HERE

Simpler Rules and Sustainable solution

The European Commission invited all of us to co-design the future research and innovation as part of Horizon Europe – the next research and innovation programme (2021- 2027). The Result is more than 8000 responses received with a strong emphasise on a sustainable solutions and simpler rules- in terms of proposals templates, calls and IT portal. Let’s wait for its strategic planning process towards these findings. Read more Here.

An Expert for Medical Devices

There is a call for expression of interest for an expert of medical devices and in vitro diagnostic devices. Submit your application by 10 November 2019 and join the European Commission’s expert panels with broad spectrum of advisory roles. More information here.

Release of the AMIPLEXUS Version 4.0

Faster, more user friendly and enhanced with new features.
The new AMIPLEXUS version 4.0. was released on October 29th 2019. The improved platform will offer its users new features including:
1. Downloadable interactive reports.
2. Technology-Application-Company matrix feature.
3. Novel analytics based on the NUTS-2 regions and Countries.
4. User friendly search summary for easier and faster navigation.
5. Improved cooperation network visualisation with colour coding and manipulation settings.
6. New datasets Swiss federally funded research projects and ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy in the USA) as well as Updated datasets (H2020, Eurostars, Eureka) as of October 2019.

Subscribe to AMIPLEXUS to visualize and explore R&D and Innovation projects for the following programmes H2020 (25531 projects), Eureka (3905 projects), Eurostars (1750 projects), FP7 (25776 projects), ARPA(738 projects)!.
STAY TUNED!!!

SmartEEs Open Call – 4 proposals selected for the 5th cut-off date

AMIRES, the partner responsible for evaluation process of submitted application experiment proposals for SmartEEs Call for Application Experiments is proud to announce that 4 proposals have been selected to proceed with the contracting phase in the 5th cut-off date. The projects are focused on integrating flexible electronics into advanced new products.

Altogether 21 proposals were received for this cut-off date, all of which were evaluated by the SmartEEs Evaluation Panel. The funding amount for each of the selected projects will be decided during the contracting phase.

If you would like to know more about the 5th cut-off evaluation results, please click here.

This was the last cut-off organized through the SmartEEs, but all interested parties are invited to stay tuned and follow us on social media to learn about new opportunities which will be offered by the SmartEEs Community.

SOLARPACES2019 Takeways for WASCOP, MOSAIC and SOLWARIS

All AMIRES portfolio Concentrated Solar Power related projects (WASCOP, MOSAIC and SOLWARIS), has been presented at Solar Paces 2019 conference that will take place on October 1 -4, 2019, in Daegu-South Korea.

The debate of the conference was mainly run around technologies and ecomonical progress of the as well as the future of the CSP technologies. According to José Luis Martínez Dalmau, president of ESTELA, the strong decline of RES (renewable Energy Company) prices made the policy makers see the costs of the electrical system as the main driver for decarbonization, leaving a bit aside the political commitment to it. In terms of LCoE, RES including CSP, are already competitive against fossil power generation.

At the moment RES gained weight in the energy mix, the lowest LCoE (as sole decisive criterion for technology choices) lost momentum, as it excludes externalities whose costs can be higher than the LCoE itself. Moreover, the need for storage, for network reinforcements, increased curtailments result today in having no longer LCoE, but flexibility in the focus.

By the end of 2018, the current storage capacity of CSP plants exceeded more than 10 times the capacity of all batteries connected to the network worldwide. This mature technology, of great capacity in terms of volume of energy and power of delivery, has demonstrated its reliability. This is a clear opportunity for solar thermal technology with storage. In countries with good DNI, CSP plants with storage will provide the best complement to PV for meeting the demand after sunset and contribute to increasing firmness of the back-up capacity thanks to its manageability.

From PI-SCALE to LYTEUS

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.

Switch2Save project kicked-off

On October 16 2019, Switch2Save project was officially kicked-off at the meeting of consortium partners in Dresden, Germany. Coordinated by Fraunhofer FEP and with AMIRES participation, the project goal is to improve the availability and affordability of electrochromic (EC) and thermochromic (TC) smart glass technologies.

The Switch2Save consortium includes leading universities, research institutes and industries from six EU countries. Within the next four years, the partners will collectively develop a combination of EC and TC cells – with optimized maximum energy saving potential – based on a switchable total energy transmittance (g-value). They will scale the manufacturing technologies for increased availability and cost effectiveness, assess the performance of the innovative insulating glass units (IGU), and demonstrate the heating and cooling energy saving potential and the lighting comfort in two operational buildings in Greece and Sweden.

The Switch2Save EC and TC modules are based on nanoscaled thin film stacks that are applied to plastic webs or ultra-thin glass films by using large area vacuum and atmospheric pressure deposition techniques. The modules have a specific weight of less than one kg per square meter – much less than even a single glass pane in a window. They are easily integrated into IGUs by a lamination step to allow window and glass façade manufacturing with well-established processes – a key requirement for acceptance of the novel technology by construction companies. The integration of wireless switching and standard interfaces directly into the building automation systems will satisfy the needs of building owners and provide maximum energy saving when in operation.

Switch2Save will demonstrate the potential in two representative buildings – Greece’s second largest hospital in Athens and an operational office building in Uppsala, Sweden. The Switch2Save consortium will replace 50 windows and 200 m² glass façade area with the smart glass solution and will perform a full “before-after” comparison of the energy demand for a one-year cycle in both buildings. The findings will accelerate the widespread implementation of energy smart glass and significantly contribute to the goal of a CO2-neutral building stock in the EU before 2050.

More information will be shortly available at www.switch2save.eu.

IMG_20191016_121405 (002)-1440x1920.jpg

The Purpose of Our New Logo

With 50% success rate, we are one of the best consultancy companies for EU projects, but we were certainly the consultancy with the least visible logo. Even European Commission officials were asking us, why don’t we have a higher visibility in our printed leaflets and roll-ups. So far it followed a simple logic – we wanted to put our clients first, us second. Now, AMIRES is managing R&D projects of a value over 200M€ and has partners in almost all member states. We connect unconnected competencies, build new value chains, construct new networks and ecosystems. AMIRES brings often the missing piece for complex consortia or for business oriented partnerships. This is perfectly represented by our new dynamic logo, featuring missing elements and turquoise colour representing wisdom, trustworthiness, freedom, stability and harmony. All is perfectly fitting our supporting mindset, for our clients, for new proposals and for running projects.

Smart2Go progresses in the flexible miniaturized battery development

Meet InSCOPE project at AIPIA World Congress 2019

AMIRES is hiring!

Deadlines for Horizon 2020 calls

Horizon 2020 offers a variety of funding opportunities for research and innovation activities through calls for proposals that are set out in the Horizon 2020 work programme. Here is the overview of its final round of calls under Horizon 2020 for:

Health Care
SME Instrument
Energy
Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology, and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing” (NMBP)
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA)
Fast Track to Innovation (FTI)
Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) actions are expected to initiate radically new lines of technology through unexplored collaborations between advanced multidisciplinary science and cutting-edge engineering.

Click here to search calls for proposals and tenders of the European institutions.

Results of SmartEEs support

Co-Design the Future Research

The European Investment Project Portal

Discover How Physicist Vanessa Survived in Amires

We are happy to say that we regularly open our door for a university student for an internship. This summer we chose Vanessa- the future Master of Science in Physics. You might wonder how a person coming from fundamental academic research can asset from a consulting company. It was challenging for her to focus more on the business part of the research, but she understood that Amires’ work also requires scientific and technical comprehension in various scientific fields. We wished to know her feedback about her stay with us, therefore we asked Vanessa to share her experience.

Yes, Vanessa is studying Physics at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and will be graduating with a Master of Science this fall. She conducted her Bachelor’s and Master’s research at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in the Division of Medical Physics in Radiology, mainly working on high-field magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of the human brain. During her time at AMIRES, she worked together with several project managers and data analysts in order to get an insight into their versatile daily activities with interesting research topics focusing on the strategic fields of Energy Efficiency, Additive Manufacturing, Photonics, Flexible Electronics, and Regenerative Medicine and Medical Devices.

“What I liked the most about the job was the fact, that it requires not only administrative and management tasks, but also a scientific and technical comprehension for research and innovation projects in various scientific fields. At the same time, I also acquired soft and administrative skills which will be helpful for my upcoming PhD studies, as well as for any future job I will work on afterwards” said Vanessa.

Vanessa got also the opportunity to learn about the various funding schemes of the European Union (H2020, FP7), as well as how much hard work needs to be done to create international sustainable partnerships and cooperation.

“My upcoming work as a scientist in an international working environment will definitely benefit from the knowledge, I have gained during my time here at AMIRES.

Amires team had a pleasure to co-work with her and wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Each generation brings with its greater tech-savvy than the last and each brings its own unique approaches. After our experiences we encourage companies to take the opportunity to involve youth people and seek their feedback. These interactions provide them the opportunity to incorporate what they’ve taught themselves into the real world.

Access Innovative Smart lightweight composite materials and components

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CALLS IN HORIZON 2020

The European Commission has officially released the 2018-2020 Work Programme for the individual topics and provided insights into the upcoming calls. During its final three years Horizon 2020 will provide further investments of around €30 billion in research and Innovation. Find the work programme 2018-2020, the final round of calls under Horizon 2020, below:

Funding & tender opportunities

INCREDIBLE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF AMIRES

Happy Birthday AMIRES! We reminisced about our journey that has been keeping us 10 years on and celebrated at the Zámek Kynšperk, a beautiful castle in the Czech Republic, together with all the colleagues and their families. Within this period of time, we have grown an exceptional level of collective motivation in our team that describes our company culture. AMIRES means a friend of the research and this serves as one of our guiding value such that our experiences and expertise can be only overshadowed by our friendly approach. By a friend we mean our employees – today we are already ten of us, from two 10 years ago. We come from 5 different nationalities, regardless the gender and race, including Italy, Kenya, Montenegro, Slovakia and Czech. With an equal number of men and women, our company embodies gender equality. We believe that our guidance and thematic expertise have uplifted your work and stimulate your results.

Greetings from our team and their family members.

Upcoming 2020 calls in Horizon 2020

Do you aspire to prepare a proposal addressing a topic under the upcoming calls in Societal Challenge, focusing on the topic such as – clean water, nanotechnologies, raw materials, efficient energy or information and communication technology? The European Commission presented the draft versions of Work Programme 2018-2020 for the individual topics and provided insights into the upcoming calls. Find the pre-publication of the work programme 2018-2020, the final round of calls under Horizon 2020, below:

For Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy click here.
For Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing click here.
For Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials click here.
For Secure, clean and efficient energy click here.
For Information and Communication Technologies click here

This is the perfect chance to start building your consortium ahead of the deadline for the submission of proposals in 2020!

SmartEEs Open Call – 8 proposals selected for the 4th cut-off date

AMIRES, the partner responsible for evaluation process of submitted application experiment proposals for SmartEEs Call for Application Experiments is proud to announce that 8 proposals have been selected to proceed with the contracting phase in the 4th cut-off date. The projects are focused on integrating flexible electronics into advanced new products.

Altogether 18 proposals were received for this cut-off date, all of which were evaluated by the SmartEEs Evaluation Panel. The funding amount for each of the selected projects will be decided during the contracting phase.

If you would like to know more about the 4th cut-off evaluation results, please click here.

If you are interested in SmartEEs funding opportunities, you can apply anytime until 20 September 2019. The final cut-off date for evaluations is 20 September 2019 (deadline: 17:00 CET).

EuroNanoForum 2019 Takeaways

Amires had a strong presence at the EuroNanoForum 2019 bi-annual event taking place in Bucharest from 12th to 14th June. This event is focusing on both the industrial application of research results and future strategic research priorities in the area of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials of the Horizon 2020 NMBP Programme and beyond. The event was composed of a conference, workshops, exhibition, site tours, brokerage events and social events, all of which made it a worthwhile occasion.

Amires booth exhibited a number of projects the company is involved in as well as the company’s in-house developed software products AMIplexus and EffiBUILDING. The projects displayed showed the wide range of topics Amires is involved in from photonics & electronics pilot lines (InPulse, Lyteus, SmartEEs, InSCOPE) and nano-enabled materials (OASIS), to additive manufacturing (Manuela) and energy storage (Smart2Go, SABINA).

On the last day of the event a workshop called “Boosting Innovation for EU Industry” was organized by the European Commission. Amires’ CEO Rudolf Fryček acted as one of the panel experts talking about Amires’ involvement in innovation ecosystem building in Europe through different Pilot Lines, Open Innovation Test Beds and Digital Innovation Hubs.

Innovation Performance in EU Countries

If you wish to know the strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems in the EU member states, the European Commission released the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). The EIS shows that Sweden is the EU’s innovation leader this year. Data takes into account four types of indicators – Framework conditions, Investments, Innovation activities, and Impacts. Compared to last year, Innovation performance improved for 24 EU countries that have a lead over the US for the first time. These findings can help countries identify areas they need to upgrade. Take a closer look at counties’ profile HERE.

WASCOP results in EURONEWS

A dedicated serie called Quenching the thirst of concentrated solar power plants of the EURONEWS FUTURIS programme has been dedicated to the cooling and cleaning solutions in WASCOP. The programme has presented the dust barriers, soiling sensors, special coating mirrors, ultrasonic cleaning system, and a hybrid water cooler prototype, currently under validation in CIEMAT-PSA facilities, as well as versatile cooler and storage tank currently being tested at CEA-Cadarache. Many of these experiments will soon be tested in working power plants in Spain as part of a further European Union project SOLWATT and could be commercially available within three years. The serie is available to watch here.

Smart2Go first steps towards a smart and flexible energy supply platform

How to combine energy harvesting elements, energy storage and supply system, sensors and lighting elements into an autonomous energy-supply platform for wearable electronics? Which are the technical specifications (for each component) and requirements (including extreme environment conditions) that will allow the smooth integration of Smart2Go platform into the two challenging applications (sport equipment and safety garments)? The Smart2Go partners are now addressing these questions to define the system design.
Please, stay updated about the Smart2Go results! More information are available on project website: www.smart2go-project.eu

Pilot Testing of IOTSU® Flexi – Partner Search

Flexible electronics enables to produce thin and lightweight the Internet of things (IoT) devices. Finnish company Small Data Garden (SDG) recently developed (supported by SmartEEs) a prototype of a new device based on flexible electronics/substrate (IOTSU® Flexi), ideal for asset or cold chain monitoring, logistics in general and supporting services. It enables monitoring of acceleration, orientation, positioning, temperature and other parameters. SDG is currently looking for partners willing to start the piloting phase and real life scenario development. AMIRES supports SDG in business development and creation of strategic partnerships – supported by SmartEEs project. Send us your requests for your pre-commercial testing of IOTSU® Flexi.

Why the European election matter for science?

The upcoming European Parliament elections will be fought on many issues and results will matter plenty for science and Horizon Europe. Eurosceptics are forecast to make major gains in the elections that could force the next Commission to prioritise issues such as protection, defence and borders over economic and social convergence. The clash of values will have ramifications for science and research funding. Researchers hope for a new Parliament that is willing to defend science against competing budget demands. Read the whole article HERE.

The Resources of R&I actors across the EU

The European Commission recently published a Staff Working Document (SWD) on Technology Infrastructures (8th April 2019) which follows an analysis of the EU investments done through various funding programmes. Most technology infrastructures rely upon a mix of private and public (national and EU) funding. Under Horizon 2020, the EU has invested some EUR 1.2 billion while the European Regional Development Fund is providing in the 2014-2020 programmes around EUR 16 billion. The SWD suggests that there is a “critical momentum to be more ambitious, exploring with relevant national and regional stakeholders a shared vision and jointly developing a European strategy for technology infrastructures to support industry scale-up and technology diffusion across Europe”. The documents shows an estimated breakdown of the EC contribution to projects supporting technology infrastructures, i.e. establishing upscaling, demonstration and validation facilities and services for SMEs and industry users.

EUR 545.6 million- Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
EUR 628.4 million- Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing (NMBP)
EUR 123 million – the PILOTS and Factories of the Future (FOF)

Click HERE for the full document.

The future EU programme for 2021-2027

The European Parliament endorsed the provisional agreement on HORIZON EUROPE, the next EU research and innovation programme for the next period from 2021 to 2027. The adoption and proposed budged of €94.1 billion for R&D are subject of formal approval by new members of the European Parliament. HORIZON EUROPE will feature a Three-Pillar-Structure similar to Horizon 2020 with some changes to content and priorities to carry on making the difference in the society. Carlos Moedas the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation also expressed support for Horizon EU on his Twitter account saying that investing in research and innovation is investing in Europe’s future, in knowledge and new solutions to maintain and improve the European way of life. Click HERE for the full topic texts.

€10K for 5 Winning Contestant of HORIZON IMPACT AWARDS

THE HORIZON IMPACT AWARD is the European Commission’s initiative to celebrate the use of research results to create value for the society. These projects must be funded by FP7 and Horizon 2020 programmes.
Participants can apply for the contest online. The full details are explained in the following documents.

Hurry up and apply before 28 May!

Enhanced user experience with the new AMIPLEXUS 3.1

A revamped AMIPLEXUS 3.1 was released in April 2019 with new features.
The New features include:

Word clouds – quickly visualize your text search results
Highlighting – see where your search terms popped up to easily confirm their relevance
Organization cooperation – assess cooperation links between selected organizations

While the Additional data for Horizon 2020 is as below:

Results in Brief, Summaries, Reports and Work Performed – further increasing the relevance of your text searches

Contact us for a free 15-min presentation or trial version, to discover how AMIPLEXUS can add value to your innovation-based decisions!

OASIS H2020 project kicked-off

The OASIS project (Open Access Single entry point for scale-up of Innovative Smart lightweight composite materials and components) funded by the European Commission within its Horizon 2020 programme has officially kicked off! The consortium of 20 partners has met for the first time on 6th and 7th March in the premises of the project coordinator Tecnalia in Bilbao, Spain.

The OASIS project aims at fulfilling market potential of nano-enabled multifunctional lightweight products by:

Gathering the manufacturing capacity of 12 pilot lines from nanoparticles to final product.
Establishing a thorough service offer for associated technical & business development
Granting direct access to the whole ecosystem through a Single Entry Point, for easier access especially for SMEs.

Oriented towards enhanced polymer-matrix composites and aluminium, the pilot lines cover the whole manufacturing chain from nanoscale structures in unprocessed form, to intermediate products with nanoscale features and finally nano-enabled products. So, as to provide full support to interested companies, the new “Open Innovation Test Bed” will also offer complementary technical (modelling, characterization, toxicology, life cycle assessment) and non-technical services (business innovation coaching, business planning, access to private capital). These modular services will be provided to companies, particularly to SMEs, to gain access to unique facilities and knowledge without high capital investment. Such support is particularly needed at the crossroads between three KETs (nanotechnologies, advanced materials and advanced manufacturing and processes) and in an era of multifunctional products when wide scope of know-how is needed for pre-production or industrial low-medium volume production.

The project’s official kick-off meeting has set the plan for first actions to build this innovative ecosystem approach. Updated information about the project will be given at each stage through OASIS website.

Transparent and flexible – the new lightness of light

Ultra-thin, transparent and flexible – these are the attributes that distinguish the innovative OLED technology. Within the European research project PI-SCALE, with a total of 14 partners, the lighting experts of EMDE development of light act as so-called “launching customers”, i.e. as pilot customers. Together with renowned companies such as AUDI AG, Pilkington and REHAU, the experts contribute their know-how to adapting a pilot line under the LYTEUS branding to the needs of the market and customers. The aim is to make the innovative OLED lighting technology available to companies of any size in order to launch products quickly and cost-effectively. As an example of new possibilities in lighting design, EMDE development of light GmbH is presenting for the first time a prototype for a light art object at LOPEC in Munich (19 to 21 March 2019), which demonstrates the aesthetics and immaterial appeal of the latest OLED technology.

The prototype with the name “COLORLOOP” was developed in close cooperation between the founder of the GmbH and artist Thomas Emde and his colleague, product designer Christoph Petersen. The comprehensive design concept can be seen in the object – it is both an aesthetic work of art and a smart, technologically highly innovative light object.
The EMDE development of light GmbH team has many years of experience with the new OLED light and developed the world’s first OLED luminaire series, which has been available on the market since autumn 2016 under its own OMLED brand. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) can not only produce pleasantly warm and glare-free light, but can also be colorful, transparent and flexible. In order to demonstrate the almost infinite application potential of OLEDs, the interdisciplinary team of artists, designers and engineers developed a light object that playfully handles additive color mixing and the immaterial aesthetics of ultra-thin and flexible OLEDs.
Product designer Christoph Petersen of EMDE development of light about the motivation for developing the demonstrator: “Our goal is to show the variety of new applications with OLED light on an object with which the user can interact. Our light object “COLORLOOP” plays with the effect of additive color mixing by using magnetic contacting to arrange OLEDs in the three light colors red, yellow and blue differently on spring steel rings. The spring steel rings are used for electrical contacting and mechanical fixing as well as for shaping the flexible OLEDs. An advantage of the construction of the light object is the simple exchangeability of each OLED. “
Thomas Emde adds: “With “COLORLOOP” we want to present the new transparent light directly from the laboratory to the public and show application possibilities of OLED light for the design of space and atmosphere. We see new possibilities for using light as a design element for our living spaces in the immaterial appearance of transparent OLEDs and the lightness they bring. We at “COLORLOOP” are not primarily interested in a functional benefit, but rather in creating a special atmosphere by superimposing the various light colors.”
Together with research partner VTT from Finland, a battery-powered driver with programmable control was developed for the “COLORLOOP”. This means that the light object does not require a cable and different light scenes can be retrieved.
The transparent and flexible OLEDs come from the Fraunhofer FEP in Dresden. Their pilot and research lines for roll-to-roll and sheet-to-sheet production of OLEDs are currently the only ones in Europe on which this new technology can be manufactured. The teams from EMDE and Fraunhofer FEP want to work together in the future on challenges in the production and integration of OLEDs in various applications and are open to further development with partners of industry.
The prototype can be seen during LOPEC 2019, from 19 to 21 March 2019 at the ICM in Munich, at OE-A booth, stand no. 216 (hall B0). In addition, the design demonstrator by EMDE was submitted to this year’s OE-A Competition 2019.

Demonstrator Competition LOPEC 2019:

Stand: OE-A booth
Stand-No: 2016, Hall B0
Further information about the OE-A competition at LOPEC 2019: https://www.lopec.com/general/program/lopec-award/index.html

The results were achieved on the joint pilot line service LYTEUS of the EU-funded PI-SCALE project and financed within the framework of the European Union’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No. 688093.

Light from a roll – hybrid OLED creates innovative and functional luminous surfaces

Up to now, OLEDs have been used exclusively as a novel lighting technology for use in luminaires and lamps. However, flexible organic technology can offer much more: as an active lighting surface, it can be combined with a wide variety of materials, not just to modify but to revolutionize the functionality and design of countless existing products. To exemplify this, the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP together with the company EMDE development of light GmbH will be presenting hybrid flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLEDs) integrated into textile designs within the EU-funded project PI-SCALE for the first time at LOPEC (March 19-21, 2019 in Munich, Germany) as examples of some of the many possible applications.

The Fraunhofer FEP, a provider of research and development services in the field of organic electronics, has long been involved in the development of technologies and processes for organic electronics and component integration. The team at the design company of EMDE development of light GmbH also has many years of experience with the new organic light-emitting diode light (OLED), including development of the world’s first OLED luminaire series. OLEDs cannot only emit colored and wide area light, but they themselves are also extremely low-profile and flexible, allowing them to be integrated into many types and shapes of surfaces. They can be even be designed to be transparent and dimmable. To demonstrate the sheer endless potential for employing OLEDs, the designers at EMDE are now integrating flexible OLEDs for the first time into a motorcycle jacket. Used as a material for clothing, OLEDs not only can trigger completely new aesthetic trends, they can also provide active illumination instead of just limited reflectance. This enhanced visibility from all angles means the wearer can be seen more clearly, increasing rider safety.

This is made possible by fabricating the OLEDs on flexible substrates such as plastic films and connecting them to conductive threading for their supply of electrical power. Together with the HOLST Center in Eindhoven, the Fraunhofer FEP in Dresden, Germany, has now for the first time implemented an extended approach of the technology for the OLED on the joint pilot line service LYTEUS within the EU-funded project PI-SCALE – a hybrid OLED.

These new flexible luminous surfaces combine the advantages of printed and evaporated layers in one component. Specifically, the passivation layers, the metallization, and an organic layer were printed in a roll-to-roll process on barrier films from the HOLST Centre (Netherlands). All the subsequent layers required by the OLED were vapor-deposited at Fraunhofer FEP with the help of its R2R evaporation tool, which is unique worldwide. Optical output is very homogeneous thanks to printed metallization over the entire surface of the component.

Claudia Keibler-Willner, head of department at the Fraunhofer FEP, explains: “We have taken a major step forward in economical fabrication processes for OLEDs. The results are impressive: the OLED shines very uniformly. The use of the roll-to-roll process also promises considerable cost reductions for future components. By combining printed and vaporized layers, process throughput and production speed can be increased up to 100 times.”

Clear advantages for designers result – infinitely long materials with practically unrestricted dimensions and configurations can be created. The only limitation is the 30 cm roll width of the substrate material. Thomas Emde of EMDE development of light GmbH looks ahead: “We are very pleased to present a first design demonstrator using the hybrid OLEDs from the EU project PI-SCALE at LOPEC 2019. After examining the first samples, we decided on a prototype that would combine imagination with a practical application. We exhibit a few meters of the hybrid OLED in its raw form from the roll as a “pure” material component. Its transformation into a future product is illustrated through the example of our eyecatcher motorcycle jacket with luminous, integrated, flexible OLEDs. This will suggest the potential of OLEDs as an innovative surface material for interior design and product applications, fashion and textile designs, and architectural and signage uses.”

The Fraunhofer FEP and EMDE teams want to tackle challenges of fabrication and integration of OLEDs with different surfaces jointly in the future and are open to further development projects with industrial partners.

The exhibits can be seen during LOPEC 2019 in Munich, Germany from March 19-21, 2019 at Hall B0, booth no. 407 of the Fraunhofer FEP and the OE-A competition area. In addition, the aforementioned design demonstrator from EMDE as well as other design kits from Fraunhofer FEP have been submitted to this year’s OE-A Competition.

Prototypes of the Eyecatcher motorcycle jacket with luminous integrated flexible OLEDs at LOPEC 2019
© EMDE development of light GmbH

The results were achieved on the joint pilot line service LYTEUS of the EU-funded PI-SCALE project and financed within the framework of the European Union’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No. 688093.

SmartEEs Open Call – 4 proposals selected for the 3rd cut-off date

AMIRES, the partner responsible for evaluation process of submitted application experiment proposals for SmartEEs Call for Application Experiments is proud to announce that 4 proposals have been selected to proceed with the contracting phase in the 3rd cut-off date. The projects are focused on integrating flexible electronics into advanced new products.

Altogether 26 proposals were received for this cut-off date, all of which were evaluated by the SmartEEs Evaluation Panel. The funding amount for each of the selected projects will be decided during the contracting phase.

If you would like to know more about the 3rd cut-off evaluation results, please click here.

If you are interested in SmartEEs funding opportunities, you can apply anytime until 20 September 2019. The next cut-off date for evaluations is 19 April 2019 (deadline: 17:00 CET).

Pilot line project lnPulse launches to give Europe edge in integrated photonics

The four-year project InPulse kicked off in Eindhoven on 23 January. It will offer new-entrant companies direct access to state-of-the-art manufacturing of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on indium phosphide. This will enable the development of products for a wide range of new markets. 16 European partners have started InPulse to reduce barriers and accelerate development. They are backed by 14 million Euros of funding from the European Commission.

The pilot line will enable innovators to develop products fast, thus being able to focus on their products rather than the technologically complex task of fabrication. Currently there are only a handful of companies that can develop PIC-enabled products. They do this with their own in-house fabs (production lines), and a consequence is that start-ups with promising ideas have trouble entering the market. The InPulse manufacturing pilot line therefore enables new entrants to take their concepts from prototype to pilot production on industry tools and processes. InPulse connects the design process to manufacturing, testing and packaging to streamline the development cycle for businesses who do not own a fabrication plant or have production knowledge.
The project partners of InPulse will create manufacturing-grade process design kits that will be the automated intermediary between the design, production and testing. The separation of design and fabrication process know-how enables newcomers to avoid the prohibitive investment overheads in PIC fabrication technology.
InPulse will use closely aligned methods that scale in volume and that focus on accelerating the design cycle, creating more accurate and predictable design tools, manufacturing and high-throughput testing. The project builds on the pioneering work of the Joint European Platform for Photonic Integration of Components and Circuits (JePPIX.eu), which is already offering PIC prototyping services. InPulse enables the transition to manufacturing.

The first phase of work will focus on making the technology more robust and on putting in place the business processes for accelerated development programs. In the second stage of the project some thirty new products will be developed to demonstrate the pilot line capability. For this phase the project consortium is looking for additional companies and designers that want to take their ideas and designs to pre-production.

The project partners of InPulse are the Eindhoven University of Technology, AMIRES, Aarhus University, Bright Photonics, European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), ficonTEC Service, Fraunhofer HHI, III-V Lab, Mellanox Technologies, Photon Design, Synopsys, SMART Photonics, Technobis Fibre Technologies, Tyndall National Institute, VLC Photonics and VPIphotonics.

The project is supported by the European Commission, the Photonics21 Public Private Partnership (PPP), and the PhotonDelta integrated photonics eco-system. InPulse builds on JePPIX technology. The European Commission has defined photonics as one of the six key enabling technologies of Europe. More information is available here.

Flexible OLED panels open up new opportunities for product packaging

Bright eye-catching packaging helps products stand out on the shelf. With OLED lighting, products can stand out even more and have the potential to add even more features to product packaging. In the case of the Lyteus bottle label, a flexible OLED panel embedded in the paper label lights up to show the logo.

The Lyteus label features a rectangular OLED panel integrated into the label, which shines through a printed cut-out in the paper label to display the logo. However, the OLEDs can be printed to produce any shape or colour. And highlighting the product brand or catching the attention of passing shoppers is just one possible application. They could also be used to highlight specific product details, such as a drink’s flavour or colour, or to provide additional information.
Integrating sensors into the packaging further extends the possible uses, opening up a whole new range of opportunities. For example, the package could light up only when touched or when the product was opened, the OLEDs could flash in time to music or light up to warn that the contents were hot.
The OLED panels are incredibly thin, just 330 µm thick, making them ideal for embedding into paper labels. They are also very flexible, so can be easily bent for curved objects like a bottle or cup. Currently, production of the OLED labels is based on a sheet-to-sheet process. For mass manufacturing for labels, the process needs to be scaled up to be able to produce large numbers of labels consistently. Therefore, Holst Centre is developing a roll-to-roll pilot production process to address the challenges of producing OLED labels in large quantities.
“We are seeing a lot of interest from the packaging market for OLED labels”, said Erno Langedijk, Business Development & Program Manager at Holst Centre. “Currently we are working towards the launch of a roll-to-roll pilot line for OLED labels, which will be needed by the industry to print the necessary volumes of labels for mass production.”
Holst Centre is also working to further develop the technology for labels. For example, the current implementation still needs wires and a cell battery. These could be replaced in the future with flat, flexible batteries or even flexible wireless charging coils. And it may eventually be possible to integrate flexible OLED displays, providing even more possibilities for attracting and informing customers about products.
For manufacturers interested in the technology, Holst Centre offers three test kits. The Starter kit includes some sample basic OLEDs panels, the Standard kit includes a wider range of shapes and colours, and the Premium kit is customized to the customer’s specific needs with OLEDs in any shape or colour.

copyright Lyteus_Bottle with OLED printed label

European pilot line PI-SCALE, branded as Lyteus, brings together leaders in OLED technology from across Europe to create a pilot production line and product development services for OLED products. Lyteus is an initiative of the Photonics Public Private Partnership co-founded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 688093 (project PI-SCALE).

Ready, set, go! Smart2Go project left the starting blocks!

The Smart2Go project, officially started on 1^st January 2019, organized its first meeting on 14-15 January 2019 in Dresden (Germany) at the Fraunhofer FEP Institute. Smart2Go is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme aiming at the development of an autonomous energy-supply platform. Based on the results of the project it will be possible to use a wearable without caring about recharging over its entire lifetime. More information about the project can be found at www.smart2go-project.eu (full version available in April 2019).

Smart2Go_Group photo-1440x1578.jpg

During the meeting, 9 EU innovation performers (researchers and companies) involved in flexible electronics and energy scavenging and storage and 2 industries with very challenging product use cases discussed the work plan for the development of materials and components to be integrated in the energy storage and harvesting system. External experts in the field of standards for printed electronics, flexible electronics based products and R2R coating, printing and laminating processes also participated to the meeting.

Smart2Go project has a duration of 36 months, please, stay updated about the upcoming project results!

SABINA project developed its first training tutorials

SABINA is an EU funded H2020 research and innovation project that aims to develop new technology and financial models to connect, control and actively manage generation and storage assets to exploit synergies between electrical flexibility and the thermal inertia of buildings. Besides the R&D progress, the important aspects for the SABINA consortium are training activities, as well-educated professionals in the domain of energy efficiency are a prerequisite for a successful and effective energy management. The SABINA training activities will be realized through tutorials, practical training and summer school that will be organized at the end of the project.
After two years of its running, SABINA team prepared a first package of tutorials, giving general introduction into SABINA project and overview of the topics that the team have worked on up to now, e.g. modelling for thermal mass exploitation, model predictive control at the building level or novel generation of RTU. The tutorials are available as an on-line presentation on following link.
In the future when the tutorials content will be turned into practical workshops, it will be further specified based on the targeted audience of the trainings.

European Parliament Supports €120 B EU Research Budget

The European Parliament officialy approved budget for the upcoming EU research and development framework programme Horizon Europe. Not only it approved the €94.1 billion proposition made by the European Commission, it even called for an increase to €120 billion. Even though some member states led by the Netherlands have already expressed their disagreement with such tremendous budgetary increase, this vote has been an important milestone in moving towards the next reserach framework programme.

The legislation adopted by Parliament does not cover the precise terms for grant applications under Horizon Europe; that will come later from the Commission. The current rules have been criticised for being too bureaucratic, and there is a concern that the next set could be even worse. Another concern is the budget for agriculture research. There is a proportionate cut in terms of agriculture, food and natural resources from the Commission’s 10.6 per cent (of the Horizon Europe budget) to 9 per cent, at a time when there are huge challenges for the agricultural sector in meeting the needs of food security and emissions reduction in line with the Paris agreement. This topic is likely to be a subject of further discussion.

MANUELA Additive Manufacturing using Metal Pilot Line Project kicked-off

MANUELA project has been officially launched on 1st October 2018 and will last for four years until September 2022. Partners of the consortium met for the first time in Brussels, Belgium during the project´s kick-off meeting that was organized on 25-26 October 2018. Relying on two major Additive Manufacturing technologies (LPBF: Laser Powder Bed Fusion and EBM: Electron Beam Melting), MANUELA aims at deploying an open-access pilot line facility, covering the whole production sequence, to show full potential of metal AM for industrial AM production.

At first, careful instrumentation and adaptation of LPBF & EBM machines will allow increased process reliability and speed. Secondly, the pilot line – including the adapted processes – will be deployed. The hardware layer will integrate novel process quality control monitoring and automated post-AM handling and processing. The line will be fed by design/optimization and AM process simulation workshops. Those workshops will collect continuous feedback from the physical parts of the pilot lines, to increase process reliability and robustness. MANUELA relies on a consortium composed of industrial end user’s, suppliers, (material/powder, AM hardware, quality monitoring system, software, automation and post-AM treatment) as well as top research institutes in powderbed metal-AM, covering full range of AM technology chain for pilot line deployment. The deployed pilot line will be validated with use cases, covering wide span of applications including automotive, aerospace, energy and medical.

New Funding & Tenders Portal by EC

The Participant Portal which was used as a communication tool of European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme has been replaced by recently introduced Funding & Tenders Portal. The aim of the new Portal is to host all centrally managed EU programmes in one location. Moreover, the Portal will serve as a central depository of calls for tenders and the related procurement contracts. The current users of the Participant Portal will be able to transfer using their current log-in credentials. As of end of November, users accessing the Participant Portal will be automatically redirected to the new portal. Very soon later, the old portal will be switched off. Click HERE for details.

EffiBUILDING presented as dissemination and exploitation platform at the ECTP Conference

Our database for the energy efficiency solutions for buildings have been presented to the ECTP conference on the 13^th and 14^th November in Brussels.

More than 170 stakeholders from the whole construction value-chain and representatives of the European Commission shared their experience and discussed how the EU construction industry is shaping a high-tech Sustainable Built Environment.

EffiBUILDING was presented as a platform to disseminate and exploit the project results, together with the best case of our Member GOLD Q-Air from Trimo Group, attracting many questions and excellent inputs from the conference audience. Presentation is available for download here.

SOLWATT, winner of the Quality Innovation Award

SOLWATT project has been selected as the winner in the national phase of the Quality Innovation Award in the Potential Innovations category. The jury highlighted that the project meets the five characteristics that were valued: novelty, usefulness, learning, customer orientation and effectiveness. The award was delivered on Tuesday, November 27, at a ceremony held in the auditorium of CSIC, in Madrid, with the presence of several authorities.
The National Association of Centers of Excellence-CEX has recognized eight Spanish organizations in the national phase of the Quality Innovation Award, QIA, a competition created in 2007 by Excellence Finland to promote innovative projects in companies and organizations, share experiences and give local and international recognition to the best ones, with the ultimate goal of increasing the competitiveness of companies and the participating countries. The other organizations awarded in the other categories were Biocurve, AMADIX, the Royal Academy of History, the consortium of Teruel Airport, Ficosterra, Qualityfry and Textil Santanderina. These eight organizations will compete on February 27 in Beijing to win the international prize in the categories in which they participate.

Foto Grupo galardonados Premios QIA-720x479.JPG

IndTech 2018 Takeaways

INDTECH2018, an event of the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, combined workshops, keynote presentations, talks, matchmaking and exhibition. 12 pre-conference workshops were organized presenting results from EU funded projects and clustering initiatives dealing with batteries, photonics, characterization techniques, advanced materials, safety aspects and Life Cycle Assessment.

Most of the presentations of the conference were focused on the results from the consultation between the European Commission and large industries and how their requirements are reflected into the upcoming H2020 calls. Some aspects were highlighted several times during the event: 1) the required interconnection amongst the different European platforms and pilotlines and 2) the importance of data sharing for the definition of common standards and interfaces. Automation in manufacturing processes and sustainability of the developed technologies were also discussed. During the Medical Technologies session, digitization was pointed out as the current main driver of the industry.

In AMIRES booth, which was a part of the event’s exhibition, the various industrial technologies stakeholders were able to find how they can better benefit from the European research and innovation ecosystem. Examples inlcude:

Universities, RTOs and companies can increase their chances in winning Horizon 2020 funding, find the right partnrs for innovation, follow the latest technology trends and benchmark their performance via AMIplexus cooperation visualizaiton tool
SMEs can innovate their product portfolio by digitization, adopting flexible electronics with the help of SmartEEs European accelleration program for integration of flexible electronics technologies into novel products and apply for the call for applications
Companies can explore new lighting applications with help of Lyteus European pilot line for flexible OLEDs
Companies can ask InScope pilot line for a help with integration of Hybrid TOLAE (H-TOLAE) technologies in the automotive, healthcare, smart packaging and building sectors

Release of AMIPLEXUS Version 3: the innovation data intelligence tool

AMIPLEXUS is a tool for project coordinators, group leaders, technology scouts, advisers, and coaches who want to:

Be more successful in Horizon 2020
Find the best partners for innovation
Follow the latest technology trends
Benchmark your performance

AMIPLEXUS version 3 has been released as part of our commitment to continuously provide better and more efficient user experience. The new platform is more user friendly and intuitive; in addition to the previously available semantic based text search and network visualisation showing collaborations and ecosystems of organisations.

The new features in the versions 3 include:

Faster Loading
Faster Searches
More user friendly and intuitive user interface
Data analysis of funding data through interactive and downloadable graphs
These graphs allow the user to visualize the funding trends for various technological areas as by way of analytical visualization in terms of interactive and downloadable graphs for the number of projects, type of funding schemes, and funding cost corresponding to the search criteria. The graphs also allow the comparison of the participation potential of different organizations in H2020 and FP7 programmes.

Geolocation of relevant organizations through interactive and downloadable maps
When searching using different criteria, the interactive maps display the geographical locations of the related organisations on an interactive map for the H2020, FP7, Eureka and Eurostars programmes.

Data filtering through interactive and downloadable data tables
The data tables are interactive and downloadable and contain pertinent information about organisations in H2020, FP7, Eurostar and Eureka programmes that are related to the search criteria. The user can further search and filter within the tables to obtain a specific set of relevant information.

To gain a competitive edge, the rapid processing of available data and timely extraction of insightful information, contact us for a free 15-min presentation to discover the value for your innovation-based decisions!

SmartEEs Open Call – 3 proposals selected for the 2nd cut-off date

AMIRES, the partner responsible for evaluation process of submitted application experiment proposals for SmartEEs Call for Application Experiment, is proud to announce that 3 proposals have been selected to proceed with the contracting phase in the 2nd cut-off date. The selected companies come from France and their projects will be focused on integrating flexible electronics into wooden sports equipment, car wooden dashboard, and flexible tags for asset management and tracking.

Altogether, 18 proposals were received for this cut-off date and they were all evaluated by the SmartEEs Evaluation Panel. The funding amount for each of the selected projects will be decided during the contracting phase.

If you would like to know more about the 2nd cut-off evaluation results and about the selected application experiments, please click here.

If you are a start-up, an SME or a Mid-cap and if you have an idea of how to integrate flexible electronics technologies provided by SmartEEs consortium into novel end-products, you can still apply until the expiry of the 3rd cut-off date – 16 November.

Approaches To Smart Packaging

The second InSCOPE workshop “Embracing Opportunities in Smart Packaging” was held at CPI premises, Darlington, the UK on 26^th September 2018. The event featured a series of presentations from industry experts in hybrid and embedded printable electronics, discussions, networking and a tour of CPI’s newly expanded printable electronics scale-up facility. InSCOPE presented their findings and opportunities of a pilot line service to advance the accuracy and reliability for hybrid printable electronics and discuss the pharma approach to smart packaging.There were a number of drivers discussed, which included:

Diabetes – there’s a significant rise in the number of people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes that need constant support in order to manage their conditions. This is an opportunity for lightweight wearables/tags and sensing systems. There are opportunities for development of smart wearable (potentially transdermal) patches that can
1. Measure levels of glucose or other biomarkers in sweat/blood
2. Measure levels of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API – potentially insulin) in the patch
3. Deliver medication/API to the body as part of a feedback loop

Poor patient adherence/compliance – the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) estimates that long term adherence to medication is as low as 50%. There’s a significant opportunity for smart packaging solutions to support an improvement in this.

Crowded market for direct mail – there is currently no way to understand if a directto-home mailing has been opened/read. Interacting with a smartphone could give usage statistics or lights or ‘bling’ could make the mailing look more attractive and increase customer interaction probabilities. Note that cost/price of the electronics needs to be low here, although there is a discussion to be had on price versus value to the customer carrying out the mailing. The ELEP envelope case was specifically discussed.

End of life/sustainability – there’s a Worldwide drive to reduce waste, including plastics. This presents opportunities for reuse of packaging and using electronics to identify materials as they go into waste streams, this could enhance recyclability.

In order to realise smart packaging and printable electronic solutions InSCOPE has a significant capability set (seen by workshop participants on the 26^th September 2018) ranging from:

Test and validation of printed electronic materials – this includes inks (for sensing, conductivity, antennas etc), adhesives, active substrates etc.
Process design, development scale up and test of printed electronic components – including antennas, sensors, communication etc
Product and process design, development scale up and test of flexible hybrid electronic sub-systems and devices – such as smart packaging, smart tags, labels, wearables etc

The InSCOPE project is particularly keen to talk to organisations interested in the development of smart packaging in order to support process and device development as well as scaling up to market seeding volumes.

Rudolf Fryček, CEO of AMIRES, on Integration of Flexible Electronics Technologies into Novel Produts

Dr. Rudolf Fryček, CEO of AMIRES, has provided an interview to the SmartEEs Horizon 2020 project, an original European acceleration program dedicated to help innovative companies to access new markets and grow their business in adopting flexible electronics in new products lines. Within SmartEEs, AMIRES not only provides a support to the coordinator with management and coordination of the project, but has also been responsible for the evaluation process of submitted proposals for the Call for Application Experiments (AEs). In addition, AMIRES has been tasked with setting up and management of a Helpdesk for the entire duration of the Call. Finally, AMIRES is also involved in procedures setting and appropriate templates definition for all the above-mentioned tasks.

Click HERE and find out more about the Call for Application Experiments, the Helpdesk, the evaluation process and more.

Widening Actions in Horizon Europe

In preparation of the upcoming Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, the European Commission has published a report titled “Review of Issues Related to Methods, Criteria and Indicators for Widening Actions“. The report provides recommendations for selection of criteria and indicators that might be used to define targets for future “Widening Actions” designed to address inequality in research and innovation performance across EU Member States.

The assessment indicates that there are advantages and disadvantages to all potential indicators and that no single indicator adequately captures all aspects of the research and innovation process. Existing composite indicators could be adopted, but there are disadvantages in terms of complexity, timeliness and the ease with which these indicators can be reproduced. An alternative approach to combining indicators is proposed based on “filtering” Member States using their ranking on three selected variables:

Economic status – GDP per head
Research performance – % of scientific publications in the top 10% citations
Innovation performance – Number of PCT Patent applications per million population

The report recommends that the Commission considers further the merits of a “filtering” approach based on the three shortlisted variables. Click HERE to access the report.

Discover how magicians (EU researchers) fight evil (cancer) in the ULTRAPLACAD project video!

Discover how magicians (EU researchers) fight evil (cancer) in the ULTRAPLACAD project video!
Cancer is a leading cause of death in Europe. The video is describing, in a simple way, the ULTRAPLACAD approach for early diagnosis of cancer through detection of biomarkers circulating in blood (liquid biopsy), thus reducing invasive procedures. The development of the ULTRAPLACAD platform enables a broad range of clinical applications and is therefore a step to saving thousands of lives.

Great success for the Workshop WASCOP Water Consumption Management in CSP Plants at SolarPaces 2018

141 total registrations and more than 50 external participants are the numbers of the WASCOP Water Consumption Management in CSP Plants at SolarPaces2018. For the first time, SolarPaces included the topic of the Water Consumption Management in the conference and WASCOP Consortium, together with the sister projects SOLWATT and MinWaterCSP, has contributed to provide solutions to the needs of the CSP community in the topic. CSP Industrial stakeholders, policy makers, researchers and students, have discussed with a range panel of experts about the proposed cooling and cleaning solutions. A huge thanks to MASEN (Co-organiser) and SolarPaces committee for the support to achieve this great result!

MOSAIC concept presented at SolarPaces2018

Cristobal Villasante has presented at the SolarPaces2018 the MOSAIC concept through the oral presentation “MOSAIC, a new CSP plant concept for the highest concentration ratios at the lowest cost” (IK4-TEKNIKER and CENER) in the Central Receivers System session. A large and interested audience has shown his interest and curiosity to the concept. Furthermore, the poster “Analysis of convective heat losses for a solar bowl helical receiver” from POLITO, CENER, and IK4-TEKNIKER, has been published in the poster session of the conference. Both publications will become the official reference material course of MOSAIC, which it will be updated during the project lifespan.

AMIplexus Façade Technology Analysis

Introduction

Research and developmental efforts have been engaged in the race to develop zero energy and carbon free buildings in European cities. Due to the dual impact on both visual aesthetics and energy efficiency, façade technologies have naturally been a point of increasing interest within the Horizon 2020 framework, predominantly in the Innovation Action (IA) and Research and Innovation Action (RIA) sectors. Current technologies under study in H2020 include fluid flow glazing and multifunctional ventilated façades, HVAC and ICT systems, integrated PV and, solid-state perovskite solar cells. Other areas of research are focused on the development of novel biopolymer and composite materials, as well as the establishment of an eco-friendly, efficient manufacturing method for mass production.

Research Focus

Research projects within H2020 have been targeted towards the market introduction and acceptance of an end-product, materials and/or manufacturing process that defines the perfect balance between energy efficiency, environmental friendliness, safety, comfort and cost. Additional desirable properties that would set the standard for future state-of-the-art façade technologies include lighweightness, reduced CO2 emissions, adaptability, high performance insulation, low intrusiveness, reliability and durability. The complete market penetration of these products is, however, currently hindered by limitations such as bulkiness, high costs and insufficient thermal energy conversion efficiency. While the focus is mainly on the development of novel technologies, a few of the projects (e.g. LaWin) plan on developing their products based on already existing platforms to enable rapid market access.
As shown in Figure 1, the largest number of façade technologies projects to have received funding were within the IA and RIA schemes suggesting a clear interest in the advancement of already mature technologies. Expectedly, the largest investments made by the European Union were received by these projects, with only relatively low funds reaching CSA and MSCA initiatives.

H2020 Projects Facade Funding Scheme.jpg

Figure 1. Number of Horizon2020 Projects on Facade Technologies within each Funding Scheme

Key players in this technological area are: FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV (Research organisation, Germany), ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE (Higher Education Institution, Switzerland), Rina Consulting S.P.A. (Private for profit organisation, Italy), NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK TNO (Research Organisation, Netherlands), FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION (Research organisation, Spain), FUNDACION CARTIF (Research organisation , Spain), YOURISCOM (Brussels), ACCIONA CONSTRUCCION SA (Private for profit organisation, Spain), ACCADEMIA EUROPEA DI BOLZANO (Research organisation, Italy), AGENCIA DE L’HABITATGE DE CATALUNYA (Public body, Spain), SISTEMES AVANCATS DE ENERGIA SOLAR TERMICA SCCL – AIGUASOL (Private for profit organisation, Spain)

Ongoing projects in this technological field:

TRACKWAY
InDeWaG
GOTSolar
PoLaRoll
Q-Air
ESPResSo
BRESAER
BuildHEAT
ABRACADABRA
GELCLAD
4RinEU
Envision
PLUG-N-HARVEST

Past projects in this technological field:

LaWin
E2VENT

SmartEEs 2nd cut-off evaluation process ongoing

The 2nd cut-off for submission of application experiment proposals expired on 20 July, and the evaluation process of submitted proposals is still ongoing. Stay tuned for more information about the results of the selection process which will soon be published here.

If you are a start-up, an SME or a Mid-cap and if you have an idea of how to integrate flexible electronics technologies provided by SmartEEs consortium into novel end-products, you can still apply until the expiry of the 3rd cut-off date – 16 November. Please note that SmartEEs will not support the development of your technologies or research activities, but the integration of existing technologies of involved research teams (RTOs), as described in the Marketplace, into your end-products.

Good luck!

MEDILIGHT Final Press Release

MEDILIGHT project, which developed a smart light system for treatment for wound healing has come to its end. Following the final event, which took place on 2 July 2018, at the premises of Laboratories URGO in Dijon, the project published its final press release. In the document, you can find out how light can be used to improve healing and about the novel solution for the treatment of chronic wounds, which was developed within the scope of the MEDILIGHT project. Click HERE and enjoy the reading!

Update on UK participation to H2020

Yesterday, the government of the United Kingdom has released a technical notice, providing more details to the UK participants to H2020 on terms of the current participation and the continued support to research and innovation by UK government. By extending the underwrite guarantee, the eligibility of UK researchers and businesses to participate in Horizon 2020 will remain unchanged for the remaining duration of the programme. This is set out in the Financial Provisions of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, which has been agreed by both UK and Commission negotiators and welcomed by the other 27 EU countries at March European Council. Moreover, the government states that as a responsible government it needs to plan for every eventuality to ensure that cross-border collaboration in science and innovation can continue after EU exit.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has been chosen to manage the underwrite delivery. In the first instance, UK recipients of Horizon 2020 funding will be invited by UKRI to register their details on a dedicated portal on the GOV.uk website exp

Stay tuned and follow us on website and social media @SmartEEsEU to learn about new opportunities offered by the SmartEEs Community you could benefit from! New Call for AEs opening soon!