Nanotechnology Cluster Programme

The NANOfutures platform, which was launched with support from the EU Commission, met on 22 November 2011 for a seminar in Venice, in conjunction with Nanotech Italy, to discuss the five key nodes of European nanotechnology. Its conclusions will be collated into a roadmap for European nanotechnology for the coming years. Finland was represented by Eeva Viinikka, co-ordinator of the Nanotechnology Cluster.

NANOfutures’ key nodes are Nano-micro scale manufacturing, Safety and sustainability, Nano-enabled surfaces, Nanostructures and composites and Design, modelling and testing of materials. In all likelihood, the nodes will also influence the next Horizon 2020 framework programme, which is currently under construction.

“NANOfutures brings together all of the sectors that benefit from nanotechnology and enables extensive discussion of themes that are important to everyone, such as health, safety and sustainability benefits,” says the EU Commission’s Programme Officer Hans-Hartmann Pedersen.

“NANOfutures looks to the future. We’re currently building value chains for the next decade,” says Paolo Matteazzi, Chair of the NANOfutures Initiative.

Finland well represented

Each key node has been assigned an expert team that will produce a roadmap linking industry and science. Finland is well represented in the key node teams. Vito Lambertini from the Centre Richerche FIAT is chairing the Nano-micro scale manufacturing expert team, which includes Tapio Mäkelä from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Rob Aitken from the Institute of Occupational Medicine heads up the Safety and sustainability team, which includes Kai Savolainen from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. The Nano–enabled surfaces node is led by Jean-Pierre Celis from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Nanotechnology Cluster coordinator Eeva Viinikka is also one of the experts on this team. Bertrand Fillon from CEA leads the Nanostructures and composites team and David Cebon from Granta Ltd the Design, modelling and testing of materials team.

During the spring, the expert groups’ work will be passed on to the NANOfutures’ working groups for further processing. Their conclusions – for both the Commission and the European nanotechnology community – will be ready by late spring. More information about the European nanotechnology roadmap will, therefore, be available for the Commission’s Industrial Technologies conference on 19–21 June 2012 in Aarhus.

NANOfutures – a cross-ETP coordination initiative on Nanotechnology – is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), which receives substantial support from the European Commission. The FP7 seeks to act as a cross-industry platform for issues relating to nanotechnology. You can read more about Nanofutures at: www.nanofutures.eu