European partners help launch Graphene Flagship
14 Oct 2013
The Graphene Flagship, one of Europe’s first ten-year, €1,000 million flagships in future and emerging technologies, was launched last week.
Graphene Flagship was selected as one of Europe’s first technology flagships by the European Commission in January 2013.
The mission is to take graphene and related layered materials from academic laboratories to society, revolutionise multiple industries and create economic growth and new jobs in Europe.
Carl-Christian Buhr, member of the Cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes, said: “One challenge will be to keep the agility, to get the right new partners inside, so that you can react and steer in a new direction as the context changes. Another is of course the scientific challenge. Thirdly, we need to bring in industry in such a way, that ideas are taken up in a way that leads to new products and markets. That’s the whole idea of the flagship.”
The consortium of Graphene Flagship initially includes 75 academic and industrial partners in 17 European countries.
It focuses on the general area of communications, concentrating on ICT and on the physical transport sector, and supporting applications in the fields of energy technology and sensors.
The consortium will be expanded with another 20-30 groups through an Open Call, to be issued in November 2013, which is designed to help further strengthen the engineering aspects of the Graphene Flagship.
