Business Lunch Talk on 26th January 2016

The Business Lunch Talk was held in Brussels on the 26th January 2016.

Presentations were given by Dr. Rositta Cottone (BMBF), Achilleas Stalios (EU, DG Research), Didier VanDEn Abeele (CEA), Klaus-Michael Weltring (TU Dresden).

They gave an overview of current activities about "KIC - added value manufacturing", "Emerging and Strategic Technologies for Healthcare", "New MaterialsConcepts for Nonvolatile Data Storage".

The MaterialsEuroRoads Network is not a closed shop. However membership is limited to European keyplayers in the area of foresight / forecast of materials innovations. If you are such a keyplayer and wish to actively participate in this network then send us your membership application which should consist of a CV and a short description of your recent and ongoing materials foresight activties (ptj-smart-ssa@fz-juelich.de)

Business Lunch Talk on 10th December 2012

The Business Lunch Talk 2012 was held on the 10th December 2012 in Brussels as a small meeting with an invited audience. In Horizon 2020, the upcoming European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, research in Nanotechnology, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing are foreseen under the priority "Industrial Leadership".

These topical fields are specified as Key Enabling Technologies in the approach "Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies". The EuroRoads' Business Lunch Talk aimed to find technological answers to future challenges and to discuss appropriate funding instruments. The invited experts highlighted some research priorities.

Business Lunch Talk on 21th March 2011

About 30 participants from 11 EU Member and Associated States attended the meeting in order to discuss future topics in Raw Materials.

Attention towards raw materials for non-energetic industrial production has gathered increasing momentum with the adoption of "raw materials initiative" in November 2008 and the Europe 2020 Strategy, including such flagships such as "Industrial policy for the globalisation era", "Innovation Union" and "Resource Efficiency. Materials for non-energetic applications were identified as a potential European Innovation Parnership in Innovation Union. Raw materials-related topics are also included or foreseen in FP7 in the Work Programme for Theme 4 "Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New Production Technologies.

The presentations gave an overview of current activities in the field of raw materials, with emphasis on activities on the European level and national activities in France and Germany, and also outlined the Challenges facing the world with ever increasing demands for industrial strategic raw materials, tackling both technological and non-technological barriers to innovation.

Keeping in mind that materials innovation is an important driver for all technical innovations and is increasingly impacting emerging technologies, Renzo Tomellini, Head of Unit "Added-value Materials" in the Research & Innovation Directorate-General, gave an insight into current European activities in raw materials. Representatives of two European Technology Platforms, ETP SMR and EUMAT, discussed the main issues of European Mining as those of the mineral and chemical industries related to the raw materials sector.

In the presentation and following discussion, there was a consensus of opinion about the crucial fields of activites:

Business Lunch Talk on 8th October 2009

On the 8th October 2009 about 20 people from France, United KIngdom and Germany gathered together in order to discuss future topics in Nanoechnology and Materials and Production Technologies.

The collected presentations outline the challenges in Nanomaterials as well as in inorganic and functional materials. The importance of the automotive industry as one of Europe's key industrial sectors was stated by two additional presentations with aspects lying in the greening and the changeability in the car production. The head of unit in DG RTG G3 Materials Renzo Tomellini shared his view point about the role of Research Roadmaps to define future topics.

The presentations were given by Renzo Tomellini (EU, DG Research), Robin Young (Materials KTN), Ulrich Bast (Siemens AG), Christian Inglis (TSB) and Peter Weber (BMW Group)

Business Lunch Talk on 16th July 2008

At the workshop, presentations were given on the latest situation regarding the Seventh Framework Programme, and included an update of the many roadmaps that have been produced throughout Europe in the field of materials, with emphasis being placed on the work of the SMART consortium, and also progress with SusChem's Strategic Research Agenda. Other topics discussed were the ERA-Net activities for Applied Catalsis and Matera, as well as the Nano2Life programme. In addition, summaries of materials progress in several of the attendees'countries were presented.

The purpose of the meeting was to help direct effort to areas that seemed to have been neglected or had insufficient emphasis in calls for future funding.

With ever increasing imphasis on sustainability, it was felt that more consideration should be given to natural materials, and especially renewable ones. Biomimetics, the abstraction of good design from nature, should be a feature of future proposals, since there are so many examples of functional materials that could offer improved properties. Corrosion of materials was highlighted as a particularly important topic, since the life time of many materials is shortend through corrosion. Data was presented which estimated the current high cost of wastage though corrosion, and identified the important, and varied, future technology developments that are likely to have serious corrosion issues.

Most speakers mentioned the exciting activities going on the field of nanotechnology, and these cut across so many different areas and market sectors. It is crucial that Europe is a leader in nanotechnology.

Other subjects that were highlighted by the speakers as requiring more direction and effort were: