European Commission
The Innovative Europe Hub setting
New materials and digital technologies are two of the most promising and attractive playgrounds for innovation. As our society and economy keep running towards digitalisation, the expectations of disruptive technologies capable of shaping future scenarios in radically different ways, lay clearly in these two research fields, amongst others.
The trait d’union of these two showcases in the R&I-Days session was the development of technologies oriented to environmental protection, energy saving and clean energy. It shed light on eight ambitious FET projects that the European Commission is funding within the Horizon 2020 programme. All of these projects, according to the philosophy of FET, build on a European consortium of partners working together at the development of out-of-this-world technologies that may drive tangible changes in the near future for all European citizens.
For the new materials showcase, three researchers from Switzerland, the Netherlands and Portugal presented their projects:
- Philippe Potty (Professor of Microengineering and Medical Devices Group Leader at HE-ARC, Switzerland) presented MAGENTA, which explores a brand new technological path in thermoelectric materials to decrease the waste of heat which inevitably occurs in every activity that involves energy consumption.
- Jos Haverkort (Professor in Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands) dwelled on some particular aspects of the SILAS project, whose consortium is partnering with IBM to develop a game-changing nanolaser called Hex-SiGe, with potential impact on the electronics overall. As declared by professor J.Haverkort, “Hex-SiGe can revolutionise the electronics industry using knowledge generated in Europe".
- Last but not least, Adelio Mendes (Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of Porto, Portugal) introduced the GOTSolar Project, whose goal is to develop a next-generation type of solar cells to produce energy through the use of photovoltaics in buildings’ roofs and facades.
For the digital technologies showcase, another round of three researchers from Austria and United Kingdom presented their projects:
- Thomas Schmickl and Martina Szopek (Professors at Unversity of Graz, Austria) presented 4 FET projects dealing with autonomous robotic agents that can help us to prevent the current ecological collapse. subCULTron explores long-term autonomy in a learning, self-sustaining underwater society of robots, to help preserve environment below and above the water level, in critically complex settings like Venice; FloraRobotica is developing and investigating closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and exploring the potentials of a plant-robot society; HIVEOPOLIS will help bees in coping with adverse environmental factors by establishing technologies in and around a futuristic honeybee colony and finally ASSISIbf will establish a robotic society that is able to develop communication channels to animal societies (honeybees & fish swarms), with expected long-term results on livestock management and environmental protection.
- Stephen Brewster (from University of Glasgow, United Kingdom) introduced the LEVITATE project, whose aim is to empower the unadorned user to reach into a new kind of display composed of levitating matter. This tangible display allows you to see, feel, manipulate, and hear three-dimensional objects in space.
The R&I Days, thanks to the density of its program and the value of its speakers, is well positioned to be the ideal arena to debate around the technologies of tomorrow. The EU passionately supports science and technological research to stimulate what is already a vibrant and excellence-oriented scientific community, as the two FET/EIC Pathfinder showcases demonstrated.
More information
You can watch the recording of these two showcases and find below the individual presentations.
FET-Open and FET-Proactive programmes are now part of the Enhanced European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot.