News
April 2011
The latest Business Lunch Talk was held in Brussels on the 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 "the 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 Partnership 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 - NMP".
The presentations gave an overview of current activieties 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 impactin 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 well as those of the mineral and chemical industries related to the raw materials sector.
In the presentations and following discussion, there was a consensus of opinion about the crucial fields of activities:
- Exploration and mining
- Substitution
- Recycling
- Resource efficiency
If you are interesting in the specific presentations given on the Business Lunch Talk about Future Topics in Raw Materials, please contact Dr. Show-Ling Lee-Müller (ptj-smart-ssa@fz-juelich.de).
November 2009
On the 8th October 2009 about 20 people from France, United Kingdom and Germany gathered together in order to discuss future topics in Nanotechnology 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 industrieal sectors was stated by two additional presenations with aspects lying in the greeing and the changeability in the car production. The head of unit in DG RTD 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).
>Agenda Business Lunck Talk 2009 Since the meeting was held in an atmosphere of confidentiality, the presentations are not public available. If you are interesting in the specific presentations given on the Business Lunch Talk about Future Topics in Raw Materials, please contact Dr. Show-Ling Lee-Müller (ptj-smart-ssa@fz-juelich.de)
June 2008
The latest Materials EuroRoads Meeting was held in London on 19th and 20th May 2008. At the meeting, presentations were given on the latest situation regarding the Seventh Framework Programme, and incluedid an update of the many roadmaps that have been produced throughout the world in the field of materials, with emphasis being placed on the work of the SMART consortium, and also progress with SusChems's Strategic Research Agenda. Other topics discussed were the ERA-Net activities for Applied Catalysis and Matera, as well as the Nano2Life programme. In addition, summaries of materials progress in several of the attendee's countries were presented.
The presentations held on the meeting are collected on the internal pages for members of MaterialsEuroRoads.
The purpose of the meeting was to help direct effort to areas that seemed to have been necglected or had insufficient emphasis in calls for future funding. There was a consensus of opinion that these workshop meetings are valuable to the materials community in Europe and should be continued. The next Materials EuroRoads meeting will take place 2009 in Brussels.
>Selected pictures of the meeting
January 2008
- The Final SMART Report is now available -
The Report "Future Perspectives of European Materials Research" summarises the results of the SMART project.
> Content of the SMART-Report and bibliographic data
January 2008
The first Issue of the MaterialsEuroRoads newletter is published.
It is designed to inform you about the activities in the Materials Foresight Community and the actions carried out within MaterialsEuroRoads.
> MaterialsEuroRoads Newsletter Issue 1
December 2007
- Attention - Date changed!
Date announced for MaterialsEuroRoads 2008
MaterialsEuroRoads 2008 will be take place at the Institute of Materials, minerals and Minings (IOM3), 1 Carlton House Terrace in London on 20th May 2008. The agenda will include contributions from Martyn Chamberlain (DG Research), Anthony R. Flambard (ERA-NET "ACENET"), John Colreavy (ERA-NET "Matera") and Bernie Rickinson (Materials KTN).
The agenda and the registration details will soon be published.
MaterialsEuroRoads is shortly after the Matrials congress 2008, which will take place between 13-15 May 2008 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, U.K.